V&H does make "quiet" baffles that supposedly drop the noise level 2 to 3 dB. I was not prepared to spend the money for those baffles for such a small change in sound levels. It takes almost 3dB for the ear to even detect a change and there are no guarantees that you are going to get the "full benefit" from the quiet baffles. I'm sure they do modify the sound level and the tonal quality.

What I did was just wrap the existing (straight thru) baffles with "sound absorption " material ( I use ceramic welding cloth from McMasters) and then measure the result. I got 1 dB difference on the meter in SPL and a lower "tonal" quality.

I suggest that if you really want to "quiet" the V&H down, you look at alternative aftermarket products. Ideally you would want both the V&H quiet baffles and the Hard Kore, Thunder City, etc as well but it's just $ to spend.

I'm pretty happy with the result I got which the "cheap way" out and wrap the current baffles.

D

 

I put the Quiet Baffles AND Hard Kore baffles on my wife's 2011 Heritage that had the V & H Long Shots and the stock baffles.....huge difference....only removed the stock baffles and installed the other parts...

 

Here's another "update" given that I never seem to leave things alone.

I changed out the ECM for a ThunderMax w/ Autotune. I added O2 sensors to the V&H BSS since they were not "standard" for 2006. While that in itself should not have changed the sound level, it did make some difference in the sound "output" (tone, etc.) since the AT was constantly changing the AFR. I have not made any measurements yet since the AT is still updating the maps.

Several friends that i see on as regular basis have commented on how much quieter the exhaust note is now.

Over the weekend, i changed out the "old" 8 degree injectors for the 25 degree injectors. Harley made a mistake in 2006 when they tried the 8's! I did not have a problem with the PC3 & the 8 degrees but the ThunderMax did not like them at cold start up and idle. Really rough and gross sounding exhaust note.

D.

 

Well I changed out my V &H Big Shots for Samson True Duals a couple of months ago. Don't get me wrong, i liked how I had gotten the BSS to sound but I wanted bigger Saddle Bags and the pipes would be in the way.

That meant I needed to "tune" the sound again because the stock baffles in the Samson's were LOUD (but not as loud as the BSS stock baffles). I wrapped the Samson's but that did not do much. Sort of like my experience with wrapping the BSS baffles. When I pulled them out later, I found that i had blown the packing out in several places even though I had wrapped it in SS wire!!!!

So I needed to add some "quiet" baffles to the rather large (4 inch) high performance Silver Bullets used with the Samson dual headers. BCT said i could put there baffles in the head pipes just in front of the stock baffles but I did not think much of that idea.

I contacted Samson and they said to use their dB Killer Baffles which are pretty expensive..... I bit the bullet (no pun intended) and bought two from Dennis Kirk at decent discount and installed them today.

All I can say is that Samson named these tings Correctly!!!! Still has a nice rumble at idle and does "bark" just a little when you roll-on but they are absolutely super at road speeds. They are the perfect match for my Softail bagger now....The table below shows the results measured against all the mods.

 

wow, thank you very much TXSailor for all this feedback! Cuz it looks like the quiet baffles I ordered won't do as much as I'd hoped. *shrug* Oh well, atleast both my pipes and baffles are V&H.
Though thank you also Parabellum for the idea on custom earplugs. I right with earplugs now, but still have slight ringing after a whole day of riding. And it sucks when the plugs don't fit right or go in all the way.
My riding buddy uses wads of cotton, but I tried that and it didn't make one lick of difference. I don't know how he deals with the noise, LOL.

 

How can one find or choose slip-on mufflers with the right sound?
And the bit of power boost.
I want a little increase in sound over factory stock but not too much.
Catalogs don't say. How do you choose? Choose for looks and hope on sound?

Doesn't every exhaust pipe have a certain amount of back pressure and whatever else goes into power boosting and sound level; shouldn't that be on a label?

I'm buying a 2004 FLSTC Heritage, 30,000miles with Samson long mufflers and they are far too loud. First purchase will be new/used slip-ons, but how do I choose which ones?!
Kayakeur Bud
Aug. 3, 2015