Curious what the consensus is on this. Thinking about adding them, & which is best gasket (tapered or flat) for install back on heads..

I have (obsolete now) Hooker Long Shots that open to 2-1/4" & no baffles.. Sound fine, & run fine w/them. but wonder f these torque cones could help low end a bit..

Appreciate any input.

 

With those pipes wouldn't hurt to try them you won't lose any ground, had a similar set for a 88" shovel. Never could get them to run right. Shame they looked awesome

 

Run em...

 

DKCustoms Thunder Torque Inserts are a better idea.
https://www.dkcustomproducts.com/

 

I’m a nerd about tuning exhaust. I’ve made several stepped headers from scratch, tested and compared a lot of exhaust and various solutions. Most of my experience is street/strip application with a daily riden 11 second shovel.

With a Shovel I have NEVER seen a scenario when torque cones helped. So I’ve had a very negative opinion of torque cones until I started dabbling with Evo.

I had a 1990 FXSTS with 10 to 1 pistons, in unknown performance camshaft supplied by Branch in the early 90’s, mildly ported heads with a good three angle valve job, hot ignition system. I tried about four different exhaust systems on it. I wound up using the medium length python pipes that have the hidden crossover in them. I tried them with baffles with modified cut down baffles, lollipops at the end, quarter inch bolts at the end, at the end of the day, I had a significant stumble in the upper mid RPM range that lasted a good three or 400 RPM or more. You could push through it to get power again, or just shift then. But no matter what I did with carburetor tuning, timing and pipes, it wouldn’t go away.

I finally begrudgingly tried torque cones. And I can say they made a significant improvement that the lollipops and baffles could not repair. It still wasn’t perfect. But it was much better.

i’ve never tried the DK solutions. But I have tried welded large washers turned different angles, toward the end of the pipe with different size openings. Personally, I usually end up liking very large thumbscrews turned particular angles with lots of trial and error. Usually it doesn’t affect a mile per hour but it does start to affect 60 foot times. I suspect there concave shape might do something in-regards to reversion dispersion. I would like to try a set, and eventually I will. But I’ve gone big big motor and I can’t really imagine any restriction being my friend at this point. But that’s another chapter for me to discover.

Exhaust for Harley can be bitter sweet. You see everybody goes by look’s. The truth is an exhaust system is absolutely critical to make or break whether your bike is fast and smooth or not. I don’t think there’s any other segment in motor building and performance tuning that is more filled with myth and bad advice. Almost 99% of all information you read is based on a stock 80 inch Evo, maybe stage 2-3 and yet everybody clings to it, no matter how big the motor is or how performance orientated their motor is or in fact how they choose to use their motor.

The pipe you want to go fast and the pipe you want to show big numbers on a dyno are not always the same pipe. Never continue to read anybody that starts talking about back pressure. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Pipe, diameter and pipe length. Definitely affect your bikes performance. And there is no blanket pipe that’s always better. Every single motor recipe, gearing, combination, bike weight, intended use, and rider ability affect the correct pipe for you. There are a zillion variables.

If you don’t wanna do any work, and you just wanna stick something on that’s close and you have a basically stock 80 inch motor maybe stage two or even stage three then by all means go get a blunder header, or that guy RS1 or something that thinks our Harley’s have something to do with a jet or some two and one Honda conversion pipe and go have fun. There’s gonna be 1 million Dyno slips that say that’s the superior pipe because they stuck it on some anemic motor that small cubic inch small compression and it was the best pipe for them.

Let me say this with absolute confidence, and don’t care who argues with me, I’ve paid my dues to say this, drag pipes are very, very good on the street when you tune your bike. Exhaust systems need to be tuned. That means the correct diameter, the correct length and tailored to your motor. Compression matters, stroke matters, definitely valve timing matters, there are so many things that come in to play to make an exhaust system right. You cannot do that with a generically made pipe one-size-fits-all. It’s 10 times harder to mess with discs in a preset two into one pipe compared to using a hacksaw with a cheap set of drag pipes and truly tuning it to the bike. Tons of people are gonna attack this thread. I don’t care. I don’t care how many Dyno pulls you’ve done. I don’t care what kind of money you’ve spent. I don’t care what magazine article you read or what some tech guy at your Harley dealership tried to sell you. I’ve spent my money, and I’ve spent countless hours months years and when the tire hits the pavement, it does not lie. I don’t care what your piece of printer paper shows from a dyno. It’s not about big numbers it’s about what pipe is best for your motor when you’re actually riding it.

My advice, is try the torque cones, maybe try the DK units and then you tell us. Because none of us are sitting on your bike tuning it riding it on the street. That means none of us will have the right answer. The only one that will have the right answer Is you when you try them both and decide for yourself

 

I never cared what anyone's dyno sheet said either. I never wanted to ride on one because the scenery never changes. But I have ridden a lot of road miles and totally get where you're coming from.

 

Not Me...Not Ever
How much Money do we believe H-D put into R&D in Every Aspect??? Certainly AMF spent an Inordinate amount..
Are we to Believe Evo Exhaust was an Afterthought???? (kinda like Nova for the Wizz-Kids) If some cheap *** little tidbits worked...don't ya think at least the new "Wizz-Kidds" woulda jumped on that???

 

For a stock engineered motor, I’m positive the factory knew what they were doing, and engineered the very best muffler system that would meet emissions and work well for that size motor, at that noise level, at that compression, with that ignition, with the gearing, at that weight, with the statistical view of warranty and repair.

But none of us leave it at that. None of us want 50 hp lol so what do we do, we put in bigger cams, we put on bigger carburetors, we put on hotter ignition systems and of course, then obviously that stock engineered pipe is no longer the right solution for all of those other horsepower additions.

 

I was lucky enough to have a Harley dealer let me use the new dyno they bought in the mid 90s and the top tech in the shop jimmy miller for a road racing buell we campaigned 1995 to 1998 with out that we would have not won the US national championship

together we spent 100s of hours and tried everything any one thought of - plus i had a engine dyno sim early design did the math for me actually

exhaust — we tried many things and combos of things because if you find something and can see it ( dyno jet at that time had just came out with a timing plot )

it measured the the time it took from engagement to red line we used - we chased the torque not the max HP - road racing is about the engine having legs - as i felt the HP was a product of how much torque and the speed of the said torque produced

long winded answer but - we ended up with a turbulator in the intake behind the 42MM mikuni no ac pump used - and torque cones in a modified exhaust with a super trap double set of discs and a center cut out taper cone we bought a box of those was also in the equation - had to conform to 90 decibels @ 1/2 engine speed < sportster engine section saved me as 5250 was max speed 1200 cc in the book — they did look at us but we were issued a number plate

the legs - we de stroked the engine to 3 5/8 stroke lengthened the rods to 7113 from 6960 and increased the bore to 3 3/4 the engine is the lower frame so it cant have the height changed as the bike is 2 pieces top with the wheel and fork and lower with the engine and rear wheel the combo let us match MID 90s Ducati engine speed we were up against but not the jap stuff - but we had 106 pounds of torque at the tire - on the 1/4 MILE straight at mid Ohio 159MPH

 

I buy Into Rains and JZ's, comments... But, Coming from a Raw Horsepower environment (Drag Racing) we have different criteria.
On The Street... I really like Manners (something Dragbikes severely lack) so I do Not subscribe to "gimmicks".
Besides...it is a Shovelhead... What can one truly expect??? at Best to run with an Ironhead!!!
KISS thanks