I finally got around to redoing my exhaust and went with 1-3/4 straight pipes from the Fenton headers all the way back . At idle it sounds great, under load above 3k rpm it's rapping and sounds really great. It's when you are just taking off till 3k the sound is like a car without a muffler. I would like to improve the sound and quiet it up a little. What would cure the mid-range sound and not sacrifice the rest?
Use a round track muffler. Throaty and gutteral. TURN Your volume UP! speedway. https://www.speedwaymotors.com/shop/oval-track-mufflers~65670-2-2-11-187 Here’s an example of this.
I had a friend that ran his flathead without mufflers and asked my opinion, I told him it didn't sound half bad. He reminded me that I was half deaf. I pretended not to hear him and asked were he kept the good stuff hidden. I Corinthians 12:14 "...keep your women silent in church..." and the long disputed missing 15th verse "...and muffle thy flatheads"
Good Luck if you find a muffler or whatever that gives you what you ask. I also seek a muffler and tail pipe for a stock '40 that makes quiet and low back pressure. Seems that twin pipes is all that responders can recommend. The '40 chassis is a poor candidate for driver side exhaust but doesn't keep too many from installing. Had enough of loud cars 55 years ago. Along with age related hearing loss is annoyance from loud distorted noise. The young just think we're demented. I too may have to find a muffler shop that can help. Fred A
My Vanse & Hinds MC pipes have a slip in. It did help with noise some what. I still need to ease down the street so I don't piss the neighbors off. They may be too small in diameter, I'll have to check.
Straight through mufflers, like glass packs, allow the high end frequencies to bleed off through the perforations in the pipe, and those frequencies are then quelled in the glass packing material, allowing the lower frequencies to continue on out the tail pipe. There is nothing that cancels out just mid range. Somebody above suggested Porter mufflers, that's not bad advice.
I used 2.25" pipes and 22" Smittys on my flathead. Sound is sweet but then again I didn't want the exhaust to mask the whine of the 471 or the QC. Priorities. I had a t-bird with squeaky upper control arms way back when, I ran open headered a lot.
I put a pair of 20 inch (or thereabouts) resonators that were made to quiet a big old Oldsmobile. They sound raspy and not at all what I was hoping for. I've got a set of glasspacks I'm going to put on it. They sound good on my other car so I'll give them a try here.
Stick two of these scouring pads in each rear end secured with hose-clamped cross wires. Then use the third one to replace the worn out plastic mesh crap used in vented oil filler caps.
Nothing really to add that will help. But did I ever tell you about the night I dreamed I was a muffler ? I woke up I was exhausted !!!!
Thought I'd give everyone here a little chuckle. When I was about 13 a buddy and myself were trying to make my Dad's new 58 Pontiac Chieftan sound cool and we read about putting steel wool in the tailpipe for that throaty sound. Well we didn't have any steel wool but we did have some SOS pads. We stuffed a bunch of pads in the tailpipe and bent up a coat hanger to keep them in the chrome exhaust tip. Well you can imagine what happened after my Dad drove around and the SOS pads heated up and the soap in them started to burn and smoke up. It wasn't a good day for me!
Checked today they are actually too big to slide in. While up on the lift, I did noticed one of my clamped joints is loose. I'll see how it sounds now with ti tightened up.
Wasn't it traditional to use gray cast iron plumbing pipe at one time? I bet that sounded good, the diameter was pretty small I expect.
I have a dual 1-3/4" exhaust pipe setup with Brockman mufflers. They were just a tad too loud and I was getting a decel rap. Having several motorcycles, I thought I'd try baffles and they work great. Slipped them in and have a screw on the bottom of the tailpipe to keep them in. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=1-3/4+exhaust+baffle&atb=v283-1&ia=web
My only concern they look too restrictive. The V-H ones I have are a louvered spiral tube. Unfortunately they are too big to slid in. They're just laying on the shelve collecting dust so I'll slit them open and tack weld them to a smaller diameter to fit. I'll experiment with mounting them at the end of the tail pipe and then halfway to see if it changes anything.
The Jalopy Journal
