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I have 1 & 3/4" drag pipes with a small 1/2" square homemade baffle in the end for back pressure on my 99 EVO. Sounds great and runs consistant all the way from idle to wide open. I upshift early in town and around the hood.
The 1 3/4" drag pipes with slash cut ends are my all time favorite. I had them on my 93 FXLR and you could wake the dead and the sound was perfect. I ran some 2 1/4" Shotguns pipes from Run Roader on my 91 FXSTC and the tone was deep and mean. I'm real happy with my V&H Staggered Straight Shots with BCT Thunder Monsters on my carburated 02 FXST. The sound is pretty intense and you sure can't sneak up up on anyone. I just installed the Samson Hell Raisers on my 07 Street Glide. The tone is aggressive but when I swap out the Samson baffles for some BCT's it's gonna get my neighbors loving me even more.
In my opinion, it's not about the decible level. It's about the tone. There are a lot of loud pipes out there that I think sound horrible. Some people get loud pipes just for the sake of making a lot of noise. Sometimes, a pipe with slightly lower decibles but a nice tone will sound MUCH better. When I get an exhaust, I look at the quality of the sound and how well the exhaust performs, rather than how many dead people I can wake up.
The older I get the quieter I want my pipes. Nothing surprising there. A little louder than stock and I am good. One thing that has always surprised me is how many people choose noise over performance. Some really loud pipes dont have enough back pressure and hurt bottom end performance. I would always choose performance over sound. But thats just me. To each his own.
In my opinion, it's not about the decible level. It's about the tone. There are a lot of loud pipes out there that I think sound horrible. Some people get loud pipes just for the sake of making a lot of noise. Sometimes, a pipe with slightly lower decibles but a nice tone will sound MUCH better. When I get an exhaust, I look at the quality of the sound and how well the exhaust performs, rather than how many dead people I can wake up.
I agree with this 100%. I have heard some really loud pipes that sound really bad...and, I have heard some quieter ones that sound really good.
My Slim has Samson Sidewinders that are loud and sound good (I think), and my Heritage Springer has V&H True Duals that are a bit quieter, but sound a bit better too. I also wonder if that has anything to with EFI compared to carburetor.
I run Samson Big Guns on my Fatboy. They are not exactly quiet, but have a great sounding rumble to them. I love how it sounds. I recently rode with a friend who has a new Deluxe with stock pipes. Beautiful bike but could not hear it.
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