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Choosing the right muffler

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Yeo
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Choosing the right muffler

Postby Yeo » June 24th, 2005, 12:46 pm

Sourced from http://www.enjoythedrive.com

Choosing The Right Muffler
How to get the sound and performance you desire.

If you’re running on the street--or in many racing series--you need mufflers. They also come in handy during long drives, when the drone of the exhaust can be downright exhausting.

But which muffler should you choose? It depends on your taste, your engine, the space available on your vehicle and how you use that vehicle, too.

After all, a muffler can be used to tune your engine’s powerband, so that it makes more peak power (a good goal if you’re drag racing or hitting the Autobahn) or more midrange torque (preferable if you’re road racing or driving on the street). By its nature, a muffler also will have a profound impact on the way your vehicle sounds. Often, you can find several mufflers that provide comparable performance for your application, but one is quiet, one’s loud and another is somewhere in between. Hi-po mufflers offer some other advantages over stock units, too. For starters, most hi-po models will last considerably longer. Some even come with a lifetime or million-mile warranty. Performance mufflers also can improve your vehicle’s fuel economy by helping the engine become more efficient. And because some mufflers come with exhaust tips already attached, a simple swap can make a styling statement, too.

* Muffler Designs
A muffler’s purpose is, quite simply, to muffle the noise produced by the engine. When it comes to high-performance mufflers, there are essentially three designs: cancellation, absorption and diffusion.

A cancellation muffler features chambers inside, which tune and cancel various sound frequencies.
Image

In an absorption muffler, the exhaust passes through a perforated tube that’s wrapped in sound-deadening material. Various kinds of packing material are used to absorb sound, including fiberglass (hence the term “glasspackâ€
Last edited by Yeo on June 27th, 2005, 7:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Mr. Red Sleeper
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Postby Mr. Red Sleeper » June 24th, 2005, 2:35 pm

gr8 post!

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Jimbo
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Postby Jimbo » June 24th, 2005, 3:15 pm

When it comes to an exhaust system, backpressure typically reduces performance


"An engine needs a certain amount of backpressure , or resistance to flow, below the torque peak of the engine,"


Oh gawd here we go again, trying to confuse somebody else head now.
Thas why I hate these articles, its best to just know the physics of the whole shebang

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Postby honda4life » June 24th, 2005, 4:50 pm

damn yeo
really good info there

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Postby zodiaque » June 25th, 2005, 6:30 pm

Good read, shows that putting any old fancy bling fart can won't neccessarily make an improvement. :lol:

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Postby ~Vēġó~ » June 25th, 2005, 10:34 pm

Mr. Minister strikes again.....sweet info bro!

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Postby daymean » June 26th, 2005, 2:24 am

gr8 info dude!

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Postby plex » June 26th, 2005, 7:13 am

good infor.. 8)

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Postby TurboDrive » June 30th, 2005, 8:38 am

Well Packaged information man. 8)

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Postby Anton » July 1st, 2005, 7:39 am

Sweet read dude!

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Postby k.c.151 » July 17th, 2005, 11:38 am

greatly appreciate the info...i'm going to modify my muffler/piping simple based on what i was told...but now i know exactly why and what to expect... :) :lol: :) :lol:

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Postby demented » July 28th, 2005, 3:05 pm

Great info pallie.

We have one of the old time barrels on meh dad's car, "thrush barrel" i think it's called ....sounds irritating at times but with a straight pipe before it ....sounds wicked...especially at high RPM's when shifting gears :mrgreen:

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Postby Greypatch » August 3rd, 2005, 7:49 am

well done

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Postby Xman » August 29th, 2005, 11:53 am

cool

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Postby Wiggies » September 10th, 2005, 4:30 pm

Very good article :)

I have a question doh, What is a better exhaust size, 2 inch or 2.5 inch for either a 1.5 or a 1.7 liter engine. I would like to know what are the benefits or faults of using one over the other :)

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Postby mini me AWD » September 10th, 2005, 5:10 pm

A diffusion muffler uses diffuser plates at the end to split up the sound so it follows many different paths. The sound coming out of this type of muffler can be tuned by adding or subtracting diffuser plates. (Contrary to what you might imagine, you get a quieter exhaust system by running fewer discs.) Some hybrid diffuser mufflers also use absorption material to reduce decibel levels even further.

i didn't know this. thanks yeo

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Postby Wiggies » September 11th, 2005, 8:38 am

i'll be bumping this thread. I would really like to get an answer to my questions please :)

Bump!

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Postby redsupra101 » September 30th, 2005, 2:02 am

that depends on your engine setup man!!! stock, modified, and what engine too !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Postby Empress » November 20th, 2005, 12:12 pm

real good stuff Yeo!!

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Postby Madrax » December 5th, 2005, 11:58 pm

I'm still somewhat confused...... :oops:

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Postby linker » August 16th, 2006, 10:32 pm

Great info, great link...

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Postby horsepwrjunki » September 4th, 2006, 8:36 am

BUMP JUST BECAUSE!

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Postby TESTED performance » September 4th, 2006, 8:25 pm

see if you could find an article thats just as comprehensive about NA to forced induction conversions :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: ...

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Postby Zh@ne » September 4th, 2006, 8:58 pm

all of this boiled down is simply put - what you like, what yuh engine can take and how deep yuh wallet is :?

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Re: Choosing the right muffler

Postby devysunny » May 24th, 2011, 11:55 pm

brother Yeo i have a b14 engine in my b11 with a big ole noisy ass muffler that makes people look at me when i drive through Arima cause the expect speed it sounds like a race car, i love the attention sometime but my grandmother hates it nor can i have a convo with a lady when i roll, what i need to know though is it true that big noisy ass chrome tips decreases fuel efficiency?

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Re: Choosing the right muffler

Postby rollingstock » May 25th, 2011, 2:02 pm

^ It can, if the muffler is free flow and doesn't introduce any back pressure as the oem muffler, it would affect your power band, more power at higher rpm's but less power at lower revs, so simple things like pulling off from a standstill or overtaking would cause you to have to use more fuel to get a comparable performance as that of stock. It would however allow you to get a higher top speed. Nothing astounding from a stock econo engine though.

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Re: Choosing the right muffler

Postby Hook » May 26th, 2011, 11:10 am

The "backpressure" talk is a myth eh. There's no combustion engine on planet earth that "needs a little backpressure".

See, because your combustion stage in the cycle is a series of controlled "explosions" (let's call them explosions for now) across 3 or more cylinders (in your case, 4 cylinders), there are going to be pulses of exhaust gas flowing through your pipes.

Now, dig this shiznit. Because of the rapid opening and closing of the exhaust valves, there is sometimes cavitation in front of the exhaust pulse and sometimes after. This is a low pressure area, which if comes in front the pulse provides a pressure gradient that allows the exhaust gases to flow out the pipes (let's call this a positive pulse), but if it comes after, it causes the pressure gradient to flow in the opposite direction (let’s call this a negative pulse) and exhaust excavation due to upward piston movement only carries it so far down the pipes.

A proper exhaust system needs to be designed in such a way as to accomodate proper wave propogation to merge these pulses properly for a smooth, consistent exhaust flow (I could carry this back to CXC physics about constructive and destructive interference, but I'd prefer not to). Ideally you’d think that they’d design your exhaust system to cause all the positive pulses to combine and lay the smack down on them roody poo negative pulses, but in real life, positive and negative exhaust pulses travel from your exhaust manifold to the exhaust tip and back in a cycle that, on a factory exhaust, is so friggin smooth, it feels and sounds like a constant, single, uninterrupted flow of gas.

Now, this isn't to say that all factory exhaust systems are designed to fully excavate the exhaust gases from the cylinders. Most times, a portion of the negative wave is desirable to keep some exhaust gas in the combustion chamber.
Here's why this *ahem* exhaust gas recirculation is so important:
1. Exhaust gas ideally cannot be re-burnt, but it still occupies space in the combustion chamber and can be compressed just like normal air. What this means is that it occupies the space that would more readily be occupied by a fresh air-fuel mixture to make more power, but this is for fuel economy purposes, and with an air pump (yeah, your typical internal combustion engine is quite simply an air pump) as inefficient as what we have under our hoods, there's usually a trade-off between economy and performance.
2. Now, hand in hand with the first reason, is the fact that now that there’s less air-fuel mixture all up in there, thus there’s less fuel to burn, thus there’s a smaller flame front and thus less heat and thus…*dun dun dunnnn* lower exhaust temperatures.
3. If for whatever reason, the burn isn’t as efficient as it’s supposed to be (for any number of reasons like overfueling, poor spark, Satan etc.), it’s helpful to put some of that exhaust back in there with some fresh air for re-burning (HA! You thought I said exhaust can’t be re-burnt ent? I said IDEALLY *puhpses softly*). The end result is *drum roll* LOWER EMISSIONS! *bodow*

Tuned aftermarket, oversized exhaust systems increase exhaust gas excavation because of the volume of gas that can now be removed from the combustion chamber (I not getting into a convo about the decreased speed of the gas with the increase in cross sectional area of the pipe right now nuh..we talking volume here), which, while it’s a good thing for power gains (the extent of which is subjective), throws everything I said about factory exhausts off kilter. So, you get poorer fuel economy because you’re messing with them negative pulses, higher combustion temperatures and higher emissions.

Well that and the fact that a fat aftermarket chrome thingie is fun to braaap so el foot is always on the gas.

*Tiger Woods fist pump*

Image

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rollingstock
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Re: Choosing the right muffler

Postby rollingstock » May 26th, 2011, 1:01 pm

Tha's too much reading, writing and explaining, i'll stick to mih "lil back pressure" lol

Oh yeah thanks for clearing that up hooky, it's so much easier for me to explain using back pressure than rate & volume of flow and such.

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Hook
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Re: Choosing the right muffler

Postby Hook » May 26th, 2011, 1:46 pm

You missed out by not reading it meng. I thought it was quite informative and mildly entertaining if I do say so myself.

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Re: Choosing the right muffler

Postby rollingstock » May 26th, 2011, 2:06 pm

I did read it Emm. still lmao

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