Exhaust Sound Modification
The day after we did the service, the day I was heading back home from my folk’s house, my brother decided that the Sporty should sound like a Harley.
Tags: drilling baffles, exhaust mods
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The day after we did the service, the day I was heading back home from my folk’s house, my brother decided that the Sporty should sound like a Harley.
Tags: drilling baffles, exhaust mods
Cool Site….I would not recommend drilling the baffles on any Harley Exhaust System. Doesn’t sound that good and can make them run poorly.
Contrary to the comment, and the free link to your ebay affiliate link loaded web site, drilling them out has been done for ages. No, they don’t sound as good as a $400 set of Vance & Hines, but for the budget it made a better sound. As for making them run poorly, yes it can – not consistently poor from bike to bike though. I didn’t drill out the entire baffle, and thus still kept good back-pressure. It actually runs a bit better now – a bit more top end on it. No lean pop on deceleration, and it didn’t lean it out to much at all given the altitude I live at.
I agree, no reason to drill the baffles on your stock harley exhaust. There are a ton of affordable aftermarket pipes and slip-ons that will give you the sound your want and actually increase the performacne of your bike. Check out American Custom.
@Brian – nice set of slip-on mods over at American Custom. Custom baffles created for the stock pipes is a great idea, saves money over the high-end pipes etc. One thing I noticed, is on the Black 883 Sporty, the default photo shows no baffle – it merely shows the open exhaust – which if I took photo of my exhaust as it is right now, would look identical.
God it’s irritating when people miss the entire point of a question in their answer. YES, you can drill them out. Cost is about 10 to 15 bucks for a cheap 3/8 or 3/4 bit from Harbor Freight. Gives you 3 to 5 decibals increase. Slight risk of whistle and pop.
It is likely the bike can handle this without further changes. The bike should be engineered to adapt to this to allow for years of riding with stock old burnt/rotted pipes. Doesn’t mean it’ll run great.
Obviously, buying some simple slip ons would be better, but more expensive and not sound a whole lot better. Best to wait until your stock stuff needs to be replaced, since they will cost as much as better ones. Do the work yourself, and don’t buy that overpriced stuff from the “stealership”. Debrix sells stuff cheap and the “Cobra” fuel management module go for about 250 bucks.
@scsmit1 Actually, on the Sportsters over on the XLForums, this has been discussed to death. Even excerpts from some of the Harley Shop Service manuals have been quoted stating that changing the exhaust, whether by slip-ons or full exhaust headers/pipes should not require any recalibration of the ECM unit. Different story when you open up the amount of air coming in. So some of these people that say not to and to go buy their add-ons, even the stealership, well I don’t buy it.
I have over a year and close to 9,000 miles on a set of stock pipes with the baffles completely removed. I ran it for over a year with the pipes simply drilled with 1 3/8in. dia. hole and three 1/4in. dia. holes drilled in the caps for about 3,000 miles.. Drilling the smaller holes did indeed only add about 5-6 decibles, maybe 10. Coring them out added much, much more, and to be honest, I have routinely gotten compliments on the sound and have been repeated asked what type of exhaust I have. People crap their drawers to find out they are cored stock and that it has not adversely affected the performance or running of the bike.
Is it a gamble? Sure. I took it and came out good. I do agree there are some lower cost ones that are good, and I will be probably moving that way soon after I get the stage 1 AC and install it. And yes I do all the work myself. The only work I have not done was mount/balance the new tires, only because I don’t have all the necessary means to do so.