When in doubt, you should wrap it

Especially if you are the kind of guy wanting the loudest pipe you can.

 

I had the tab with zombie on my Sport Glide before the rinehart - by far the best sound on a stock slip on IMO! I swapped in the 2.5 because I felt it was a little milder and better for my neighbors, which is was. I then acquired a Rinehart for cheap, which is basically between the 2.5 Tab and the Zombie and I swap that out every once in a while when I want to be a touch louder.

 

M, lots of wrong info... I think OP heard it wrong... Which I can do... Or guy didn't know what he was talking about...

So ya, don't talk about header tape. FYI... I did wrap my headers, but hot is still hot. Didn't help much.

So slip ons.... I happen to know a thing or two about acoustics... And from my own experience with my own mufflers...

I cut my baffles out. Sounded like crap, giant cave. I put perf pipe baffles in. It reduced the cave sound a bit. I wrapped my perf pipe with fiberglass. It reduced it more, refined it a bit. I also put in lollipops... A bit better... So...

Bass... And all low frequency sound is the hardest to attenuated and requires the most space. High frequencies are the easiest. Fiberglass wrap attenuated a lot of mid/upper... You lose that "bark", rasp.. Less angry. Since that is a lot of the sound it is definitely quieter. Most definitely not louder... As in, that violates simple physics.

If you really do want it louder... You are not going to get it much louder. You need a full exhaust. OEM cats are in the mufflers. If you got 49 state legal... You have cats in the mufflers. But they expand to such large diameters, and there is two... They are not much of a restriction, and they are not going to quiet much sound.

If your baffles are removable... Then remove them. See what they sound like. My guess is you will like some of it more, and some of it less. It's not going to fundamentally change your exhaust. Taking out the OEM baffles is a big change cause you have no idea how restrictive the path is.

But all said... What I ended up with, I still kept my baffles wrapped, but cut them down from 12 inches to 9. They sounded OK, certainly better than stock... But also a little annoying after a while. A touch droney. And it had no anger, that bark. Not that I wanted super loud, but I wanted more bark. I did all that cause I knew it was temporary... I recently got my full Jackpot Riot exhaust on.... And that is just pure music to my ears. They have baffles too with no fiberglass.

 

I have the Riot on my bike and while the baffle is not wrapped it does have some type of filler in the can, it looks like cut up mule tape.

 

Humm... I'll look. I asked, they said no wrap, but yes it can be taken out and wrapped.


Hummm... I can neither confirm nor deny... I would have to take it out, all I can see is perf pipe.... doh, forgot I had a skinny mirror. It looks like something is in there... Not fiberglass. What is mule tape? Regardless, I have zero reason to change it.

 

These baffles? And the exhaust flows left to right?


If so, that's classic old-fashioned "glasspack" mufflers.
They are loudest with no fiberglass packing around them.

Fiberglass tape and fiberglass muffler packing are two different things.

Fiberglass packing is loose, and rather loosely stuffed or wrapped around that pipe. The exhaust sounds go up into the loose-ish packing, bounce around, and basically fade out. That's basically how foam acoustic panels in a sound lab work.

Fiberglass tape is tight and dense. Wrapping that pipe with it would have lesser effect on absorbing and dissipating the sound. It would be roughly akin to painting the acoustic panels in a sound lab. That said, it would block a lot of the sound coming through that pipes holes from reaching the outer can, so it may well reduce peripheral noise from the pipes, particularly to the side, and may have a far greater effect than I'm forecasting.

Exhaust flow wise, neither tape nor matting should have a significant impact, because of the way inner pipes perforations are cut into it. They will still be right in the exhaust flow, and still facing the same way.

In any case, you can certainly try both approaches, glass tape and glass matting, and simply see what the results are.

 

Full after market exhaust and aftermarket cam. Nuff said!

 

Exactly!

And to go further... You attenuated energy by velocity or pressure. Fiberglass reduces velocity making it pass thru a tortuous path. Barriers are pressure based. So if sound goes Thru a baffle and bounces off a barrier and back thru... It's diminished. And all that is dependent on how thick and how long the wave is. Low frequencies have very long waves... 20ft, and you need half that to attenuate 10ft, and a barrier doubles, so 5ft.

The whole point of that is baffles attenuates sound, and fiberglass attenuates more... But you are talking an inch of space... You are only effecting waves in that length range... All you are effecting is treble, but don't touch mid/low. Sounds good, but that can leave drony, bloated sounding. And we certainly are not talking meaningful dB changes.

Full open exhausts are a different discussion. There is only so much you will get out of slip ons. Better sounding than stock for sure, but they will never sound like a full exhaust... And short shots are top end of all out obnoxious.

 

Thank you all that gave advice I appreciate the picture of the baffles too. They are very hard to remove , not sure I could even get them out , but they are considered removable. I like the sound, but they are just so quiet compared to my other Harleys. After all the research and talking , I think I just simply have a ,,,it is what it is... looks like a cam would be the only real fix, but I would have to pay all labor plus a tuner too, gets expensive fast. I'm happy with the power. So I would be spending a lot of $ for a stage 2 just for sound. We'll at least no one looks aggravated when I pull up to a gas pump😏. So , I got a feeling I'm doing nothing at this time. After Nov and it looks like we might get the economy back like it was 4 years ago, then I might spend the money .So far, I really appreciate all the advice .

 

So might I just say... You could get different slip ons. I don't have any experience, but I know many rave about the Tab Zombies mentioned here. Supposedly they are loud.

Yes stage 2 does add up, but you need stage one first. I don't think a cam on what you have is the right move. You can simply get a full exhaust. Cam will give lope, but pipes give sound. Yes you should get a tuner... But full pipes and tuner... M8s really respond. Not only will it run and perform better, it will most definitely sound better. Price for installing just the cam alone will cost the same or more, and you still need the tuner.

Cam is definitely not your only option. I appologize if I'm reading that wrong.