When I started riding, some 50 years ago!! it was always expected that the first thing a bike owner did was to replace the standard muffler on his bike’s exhaust system with something that was louder. Now there were a number of reasons for this and not all of them would be apparent to riders today.
The first reason was that it was believed (note I said “believed”) that replacing your four into four exhaust with a 4-into-1 would give your engine more power. Of course, unless it was a very expensive piece of kit, it really didn’t. And, even if it WAS a Yoshi or something, the only way it was going to give you appreciable gains in power was if you spent your whole time riding the bike right up in the upper limits of its rev capability and such licence-threatening activities soon proved to be dangerous, to life and limb and to the hip pocket.
Now it is fair to say that replacing your stock exhaust with a 4-into-1 DID provide some performance gain but it was mostly because the after-market kit was lighter and less weight equals more performance.
The other reason why it was de rigeur to do so was that the standard exhaust system on Japanese bikes LOOKED great but didn’t last. The flashy chrome on the outside of the pipes masked the fact that, from the moment that the bike left the factory, the pipes had already started rusting, from the inside. Mufflers were packed with fibreglass wadding to lessen noise and make the pipe sound better. But this wadding collected the condensation from the pipes and commenced the process of rusting the pipes from the inside out from Day 1. For example, my first CBX550 had only 21000kms on the clock when I bought it is 1983 and the pipes were already rusted through and required being replaced as soon as I bought the bike. This was the rule rather than the exception.
In that case I replaced the delicious-looking bunch-of-bananas pipes with a 4-into-1 sourced from Phil O’Brien at Kirawee and it lasted till I sold the bike and long after. It looked good, though not as “trick” as the standard set and it contributed to a more “sporty” look into the bargain.
Time has not been kind to the after-market pipe industry. Increasingly stringent environmental laws have made it much more difficult to have “sporty” pipes and the increasingly harsh anti-pollution laws have also impacted on the use of after-market pipes. That’s not to say that most owners don’t TRY to get around the regulations but the gain just isn’t there like it used to be. ECU-controlled engines monitor exhaust output and removal of the system can actually detract from performance rather than enhance it.
Plus, nothing sounds more ridiculous than a 2 cylinder 400cc bike with an after-market pipe, I mean, really. They sound like they are doing 200 km/h while they are barely reaching the upper limits of the speed limit. All noise and no result. As Shakespeare said, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”
Manufacturers have been trying to put a bit of sparkle back into the situation, Yamaha especially helping with its MT range of hooligan bikes. There is no doubt that the engines do sound great, especially when they are being well used but the down side is that they are attracting the wrong sort of attention. Loud pipes save lives, the saying goes. I’ve always thought (and said) that this motto is ridiculous, because all loud pipes REALLY do is to attract exactly the sort of attention that you don’t want to get, attention from the law.
So, with increasingly stringent attention from the law-enforcers, why would you want to be blasting around the suburbs with your engine yelling to all and sundry, “Here I am, come and get me!”
Yes, I am getting old, hell, I’ve GOT old, but I’d rather preserve my licence, fly below the radar and enjoy riding my quiet motorcycle.
