Hot Rods Removable Exhaust Silencer

I feel like this is a bit of a wacky inquiry, but here goes...

New project is a slightly rodded out '53 chevy with a 350 (bored, mild cam, headers, etc). 3" exhaust and it does have mufflers but its still loud and gnarly. In a good way. I like it and think it has a great sound for what the car is.

I live in a peaceful neighborhood. I have retirees and young families with babies surrounding me. I have a baby and a toddler too. I have good relationships with them and we all try to be respectful of each other. So I don't want to be that guy if I can avoid it.

Anyone have ideas to temporarily silence the exhaust, mainly for cold starts, tuning and tinkering - anything where I might be stomping on the gas? Just something that could slip on/bolt on/get put around, etc and then removed before driving away? (car will live on the street mostly, so garage isnt always an option)

Looking around the good ol' interweb turned up responses like "f*ck your neighbors" on mustang forums, and "if you want a quiet car get a Priass". Basically you're an a*shole for wanting to be respectful and still have an aggressive sounding car. I saw some videos where guys shoved pool noodles in their tailpipe (hah, not to be taken out of context) but no thanks.

Anyone see a reason why I couldn't get some quiet mufflers and fashion a gasket type connection to the exhaust and run through those before departure? Or a muffler that has an end that can be inserted into the 3" pipes? I'm fine with some noise, it is what it is. I'm just trying to find an ideal situation.

 

Good luck with that.

I finally grew up and put relatively quiet mufflers and full tail pipes on my go fast cars. I pull the mufflers and pipes off one when I go racing, it's loud enough that I have to wear ear plugs. Nice and quiet the rest of the time.

 

My first thought would be something you can slip on the end. So I would say get a stock muffler from a junk yard or some where cheap. The bigger the quieter it will be. I would then find out what size exhaust pipe you have and get a pipe that slips over yours with a decent fit. I would cut a decent slit in the removable pipe. Weld a nut on one side and a bolt/wing nut bolt on the other. Slip the pipe over your stock exhaust when you want quiet and tighten it down with the wing nut to clamp it on to your pipe. Seems like a quick simple thing to fab up. Just an idea

Or they have those electric cut outs you can install a full exhaust and hit the button when you want it loud

 

Use an exhaust cut out and have two exhaust, one loud and the other not.

 

Back in my teenage years I had a Nash Metropolitan ragtop. Since the muffler had a hole in it and the tail pipe was rusted out I got the idea to cut the muffler off and stick a 4 ft scavenger pipe on it. Then I rolled up a piece of hardware cloth and stuck it in the pipe and held it in with a piece of wire. Quieted it right down until I was in the middle of town one night and gunned it and blew the roll of hardware cloth out in the street.
if your tail pipes are straight at the ends so you can stick a rolled up piece in and then have a way to hold it in that might work to get the results you need.

 

Harleys have a removable baffle, maybe you can slide them in the tail pipe if you have room ?

or do the cut out thing

 

My Father in law said he had a soup can over his exhaust and some sort of lever he could move to pull/slide it back and make it loud. Sounds like some old school DIY of making cut outs.

 

be careful that one of your neighbors does not silence (temporary) your exhaust with a couple of potatoes stuffed in them

 

The cutout is what you want, but be careful, they are no longer legal in most areas. If you use it sensibly you probably won't get in trouble.

 

Cut outs = diversion valves to route the exhaust though a couple of quiet mufflers to get out of the hood with. That would be wild if they could feed back into the regular tail pipes.

 

Many years ago on an OT car I had and Ansa exhaust system. They had tail pipe inserts, which slid up the tailpipe. They had a little spring clip, but at full throttle they’d blow out, and you knew the instant they did. I fixed that with a set screw.

Something like this from Amazon. Google “exhaust inserts” a bunch of them come up. Use your imagination and fab something up.

https://www.amazon.com/ISTUNT-Silen...ocphy=9033290&hvtargid=pla-947399033641&psc=1

These days I just use quiet mufflers.

 

I ran Supertrapp mufflers on my 34, and changed the amount of diffuser plates until I got the sound I wanted. Takes time to add or remove plates though.

 

3" is huge for a setup like that

 

This is generally what I was imagining too. A cheap and easy-to-install/remove option for the brief period it needs to be on. I guess it just comes down to designing something that works.

As for the cut outs....I considered re-doing the system and adding legit mufflers w the cut outs, but I just feel like its overkill for my intentions. Plus the exhaust is fairly new so I'm not trying to divert too much $$ toward it. It's not a ridiculously loud and obnoxious car (at least by my standards), but its loud enough to be disturbing and there aren't a lot of car people in my hood, so it absolutely stands alone.

Haha yep, trying to avoid the ol' banana in the tailpipe. Luckily I JUST got the car so the neighbors only got a small taste of it. They're good people though, and I'm probably overthinking everything

 

My old neighbor had a straight piped Ricer car. It was stoopid loud for no reason. Slow crappy car. One of the other neighbors (Never found out who) sprayed that expanding foam from a can (Buy at Home Depot) in his exhaust in the middle of the night once. Being a car guy I think it was not cool. Not being woke up by the kids car was really nice. So I was on the fence about it.

 

Get some of those glasspac inserts for side pipes.

 

Back when I lived in Philadelphia a dude down the block had an old POS Lincoln town car that he cut the exhaust off. He'd blast down the street shaking windows and setting car alarms off at 3am. One night someone set it on fire. Don't know if it was because of the exhaust or something else, anyones guess. Maybe that's why I'm hyper aware of loud exhaust now...

 

I think the best part of this thread is that you'll make your car quiet for your neighbors, but screw everyone else.....

 

Look into late model Corvette and Camaro mufflers with NPP exhaust systems. Its a flap system from the factory that is really quite in with the flap closed and decently loud with it open. I have a late model with it and its the first late model Camaro I have owned that I have not put exhaust on as it sounds good right out of the box. You might be able to make something similar work with some cut outs and a little more piping.

 

3” auger before the mufflers, Speedway sells them in the Circle Track catalog. If your pipe are straight out the back with any type of tip; they also sell a deflector type device I pop riveted in before the tip on a ot pickup.

 

Might look into Speedway Motors for the "Auger Style Muffler" that slip into either 3" or 3-1/2" pipes & are held in either with a tack weld or sheetmetal screw, & are only about $15 +/- ea. They also have "slip-in Muffler extensions, as well as "lakes header Insert Mufflers", both that list for more. We've often been required to use the Auger Inserts at vintage events to keep the neighbors(or the authorities) happier.....

 

This thread reminds me of these, every kid had to have some on his Honda 305 scrambler.

 

Mine was a 305 Super Hawk with scrambler pipes. Those Snuff-or-Not things worked well.

 

Hi. Back in mid 50's I had an MG TD with the little 4 cylinder engine. Bored 0.60 with high dome pistons and the stock dual carbs. Split the exhaust manifold and ran straight pipes out the back with no mufflers. Put two chrome motorcycle chrome megaphones on end of pipes. Out on the Hwy at night you could hear it for a couple of miles or so. That little MG would really get down the Hwy. I drilled a hole horizantally thru tailpipes just ahead of the megaphones. I kept a few nails that would fit thru the drilled holes and a package of steel wool in the car. When I got a ticket for loud pipes I would drive down t a couple of blocks from the police station and cram 1/2 a pack of the steel wool in each pipe and insert the nail. exhaust would not make any noise with that so I drove down to the station and got the car checked and they would excuse the ticket. Would leave station and several blocks away I would remove the nails and drive away. Several more blocks away the steel wool would blow out and all was back to my normal until I got the next ticket and then repeat the above. Did that for several years and finally bought a couple of those chrome motorcycle cat backs & removed the megaphones. That was my first car. Jimmie

 

nobull, a friend of my dad did that in high school. loud pipes, no money to fix so shoved some wool and a nail up the pipe. As the local sheriff is inspecting the car and has him rev it a couple times, he notices the nail dangling out the exhaust so he pull it, and out flies the wool. oops

 

I used to go to the Indy Cr races at Michigan International Speedway. In the garage area the cars were fitted with removable Supertrapp mufflers for warmup. They helped a lot.

 

Back in the day 80's our race cars/tracks started requiring mufflers, they checked with sound meter at the various tracks, we used Supertraps with the feature that allowed you to add baffles/plates to meet sound number, I have no idea if these units would quiet your car down enough to achieve quiet you're looking for, the 3" part would not be a problem and I seem to remember that they slipped over pipe, we welded nuts inside collector slipped on, 2 bolts, safety wire, set to go, pretty easy on/off.

 

Never seen that before. It's kinda funny, but cool at the same time. Can't help but think something like that might just be what the OP is looking for.

 

Why not just replace the 3" exhaust with a 2.5" exhaust?

That won't affect a mild 350's power but will quiet it. And it won't require removal/reinstallation every time you start it in your neighborhood. Wouldn't that get kinda old?

 

Down the road I'll likely replace the whole exhaust system including mufflers, so this will all be moot when that happens. But for the time being I'm just trying to make the best of what is already on it since the exhaust is practically new (installed by previous owner). That money can go a long way for other parts right now. If the inconvenience starts getting to me then perhaps redoing the exhaust will get moved up on the priority list, but my tolerance is pretty high and it's nowhere near a daily driver.



Appreciate all the input from everyone, lots of quality ideas.