Hey ya'll first time posting. Lurking here is a big reason why I was convinced to buy an s40.

info
2006
9K miles
stock except cosmetically
mechanical experience is... very rusty. I live in an apartment now, so I have little to no ability to do things that don't bolt on.


Anyway...

I picked up a really nice looking Dyna muffler and have a tin can cut with the corrugated part as a crush seal as per Serowbot's great tutorial. I have two concerns/questions:

1. It's hard for me to trust the tin can because I've never seen that done before. Is there a reason I couldn't add a bead of Permatex ultra black or gold gasket maker on top and bottom of the tin to be extra sure of no leaks?

2. I'm having a surprisingly hard time finding a decent clamp for this. I found this Voodoo industries 2" on Amazon that looks appropriate, but I didn't know if the one in the tutorial was so beefy because you have to really buckle down on the harley muffler or if that was just the one available. If you have a link or can tell me where to get a decent clamp at Home Depot or something? The tutorial says he got his at the dollar store... I wish my dollar store was awesome enough to carry useful things.

Thanks and sorry if this has been posted before, I definitely looked and couldn't find it.

Awesome thanks. Those clamps you linked look much better. I don't know why I didn't think to look for the clamps meant for the muffler I have...

Maybe I'll just head to autozone and see if they sell exhaust pipe gasket or header material and take a wrap with that. The RTV copper stuff does go up to 700deg. I could imagine the header getting hotter than that, but does the pipe? I guess I probably don't want to risk it.

Get an adaptor pipe.

The tin can method is a poor design.

(Proper disclosure: Some people on this forum have made it work.)

Worse, without an adaptor pipe, the muffler sits at the wrong angle
for the mounting bracket.  So all of the mounting bolts, pipe clamps,
and header nuts must be progressively tightened to try to twist and
pry the muffler, header pipe, and bracket into position.
The tin can attempts to compensate for the remaining misalignment
while also attempting to seal the exhaust gases.
You may succeed, but it's shade tree mechanics at best, and only
worth a try if you can't afford an adaptor.

The adaptor is $49 from Ryca.
A local muffler shop made mine for $10.
Take your muffler and header pipe to them and ask them to make
the shortest possible adaptor pipe with a 7 degree angle bend.

Clone,

I had a local muffler company bend an adapter for me, they used aluminimumized steel for the adapter.

There is nothing better made then a genuine Harley Davidson Exhaust Clamp.

I used Permatex Muffler & Tailpipe Sealer on the headpipe, the adapter & the muffler.

No leaks in 6000+ miles.

The adapter I used came out about an inch too long and I had to drill a hole in the muffler hanger to line everything up.

Kenny G

how do you tell when the tin can gasket is leaking?   I took a long time fitting mine, and added some bracket iron and steel bushings to get a slight angle on the muffler, about 1-2degrees.  So I was able to get the header back under the footpeg heat shield.  It's a little more tight than I like, 3-4 degrees angle would be looser.

So how do you tell when the tin can gasket is leaking - backfires?

Also wondering if I need to rejet - no backfires, it's a tiny bit louder, hardly any difference in throttle response.

ero4444 wrote on 10/05/16 at 15:32:28:


Move a lit candle around the joint slowly. If the flame is being blown, you've got a leak.

I have had the dyna on for about two years now... and burned it out. I accelerated onto an interstate (I-10) this past week and blew chunks out of it....man did it get loud! ROFL....
So I put on the old OEM one (yeah I tend to keep a lot of stuff) and its back to being so quiet I could hear the headlight rattling...dang it! Now I got to fix something else....