Too Many Lawyers

SidecarFlip

Banned

Equipment
M9000HDCC3, M9000HD, Kubota GS850 Sidekick
Oct 28, 2018
7,197
546
83
USA
Why does a 5700 cu. in. auto/truck engine barely be heard while a 1000 cc motorcycle can be poundingly heard approaching from a half-mile ?

The dishes rattle in my parent's kitchen when the neighbor two doors down leaves for work at 5 AM. Makes me wish law enforcement would enforce the "defective muffler" ordinances...but unfortunately that does not apply if there IS NO MUFFLER AT ALL! :mad:
My post 20 is the cure....lol I have to say my Triumph 2300 Rocket 3 bagger will lay waste to any stock Hardley ever made, V-Rods included. When I pull up to a light and they come up alongside me, I ignore them. Total waste of time.

Years ago I had a guy on a V-Rod race me on US23 here in Michigan. He was done about 125. My R3 will run out at 160. Been there done that. Too old for that stuff now.

Other than intake howl, my R3 is quiet. Just like I like it.

My opinion of Hardley riders for the most part (not all but most) is, they want to role play. They want to play at acting like a 1%er but in reality they are just working stiffs that think they are. Suit and tie through the week, weekend warrior on the weekends. I own 2 Triumph's a Kawasaki KLR 650 ADV bike and a 68 Norton P11 A Scrambler. No Hardleys. None are loud.
 
Last edited:

skeets

Well-known member

Equipment
BX 2360 /B2601
Oct 2, 2009
14,094
2,756
113
SW Pa
I have owned BMW cafe racer, a Moto Guzzi several Hondas and one very scary fast Hayabusa that would pull the wheel at highway speeds. And I am not a 1% nor am I an aggressive rider. Well not any more mind you, my Harley, to me is classic, clean and I like how it rides, fast not really, though the big injector body cam and tuned exhaust ,well let say it keeps up with traffic. SO you ride what you like and if you must know no bike sounds loud to the guy thats riding it
 

SidecarFlip

Banned

Equipment
M9000HDCC3, M9000HD, Kubota GS850 Sidekick
Oct 28, 2018
7,197
546
83
USA
I have owned BMW cafe racer, a Moto Guzzi several Hondas and one very scary fast Hayabusa that would pull the wheel at highway speeds. And I am not a 1% nor am I an aggressive rider. Well not any more mind you, my Harley, to me is classic, clean and I like how it rides, fast not really, though the big injector body cam and tuned exhaust ,well let say it keeps up with traffic. SO you ride what you like and if you must know no bike sounds loud to the guy thats riding it
Whatever blows your dress up I guess. No matter what you do to it' it's still a potato bike....:eek:
 

skeets

Well-known member

Equipment
BX 2360 /B2601
Oct 2, 2009
14,094
2,756
113
SW Pa
Stick and stones boys sticks and stones,
In regards to your remark about them being deaf. Wind noise is more damaging that the noise of the pipes, that is if you want any scientific information. I did some testing years ago on helmets, full face ,full, half and no helmets. As you would expect, the full face had the largest reduction of wind noise, the full was next and then no helmet, with the half helmet having the highest amount of wind noise in the frequencies that caused hearing loss that is in the higher frequency range. This was done with calibrated dosminters from work, and yes I did the calibration in the lab before heading out. So I know they were with in parameters. Point being that the pipes made little or no difference in either frequencies or in noise level for the rider. And I would rather listen to a solid pin crank and a ricer screaming any day.
And just one more thought,you said you couldnt care less about Harley riders, maybe they could give a care less about you so it evens out. But that doesnt mean a Harley rider wont stop to help you on the road,,, Old bikers taught me long ago, you never leave a brother or sister stranded along the road, it might be you next time
 
Last edited:

lugbolt

Well-known member

Equipment
ZG127S-54
Oct 15, 2015
4,808
1,575
113
Mid, South, USA
I live maybe 3/4 mile off of what USED to be a quiet backroad.

Couple years ago the highway department finished building a bypass that, well bypassed the original curvy narrow 2-lane that connected the road I live on to the nearby town. The road near me is still narrow, goes through 2 school zones, but it's just not as curvy as it once was

5:18 this morning the first log truck passed by the house. There will be likely 50-80 of them today. It happens daily Mon-Fri unless the weather is bad enough that they can't run logs to the mill. Each and every single one of these trucks is running heavy or somehow illegal. I've followed a ton of them on the way to work. Rock guards missing. No straps on the load. Too long. Too heavy (shakes the house). Nary a one of them has a muffler of ANY sorts. Sure they're all turbocharged but a 12 liter inline 6 whether it's got a "rotary muffler" or not is just going to be loud. Not to mention that they're absolutely annihilating the roads. They run this stretch of road because they're all illegal, and the major highway that they "used" to run is loaded with DOT cops doing their job. You'd think that the weigh boys could set up out here by the house & they could write up a boat load of tickets. Income generators for sure, especially considering that the school zone is 25 mph and most of these guys are running 45+. With nobody to tell 'em it's wrong, they ain't gonna stop.

Sure there's a few guys with diesel pickup trucks that think they're cool (and nary a single one of them sound remotely "good"), then there's the guy across the road that's got a '67 Camaro with a procharged 482" making over 1000hp, but that don't bother me. Every once in a while the guy who lives up the road (a cop of all things) will have a big party on a week night, all nighter usually. There is some weird stuff going on down there. Well I know he works for the police dept and works nights. They keep me and my other neighbor up all night, well payback's are hell. You see, I got racecar. Yes I have approval from the other neighbor.

The guys with the dodge diesels think they have an 18 wheeler but they don't. All they have is a diesel engine that sounds like crap. Every one of them. The old 6BT's were "ok" sounding, but I'd rather than have a quiet muffler on them--that is if you could hear the exhaust over the clatter of the engine. Powerstrokes? All sound like crap. Duramax? Horrible. I have a Powerstroke (old 7.3) and I hate the way it sounds with louder-than-stock exhaust. My old truck was a 6.0 (2003) and it's turbo was really loud with the straight pipe. In the truck you couldn't hear it but outside everyone could within about a mile.

Harleys? Noise. Crotch rockets? All noise. What gets me about the crotch rocket guys is that they like to put loud muffler on them (or remove it altogether) and in most cases, they make less power than they did WITH the muffler. For a while I had access to dyno and tuning stuff at work for doing this kind of thing and every single time, exhaust change reduced power, increased noise. The ONLY bike that sounds "decent" is the crossplane R1, and even then only at lower RPM (up to about 10,000). It sounds like a muffled sprint car.

I work on a major highway. Daily the noise level from the highway is a constant 78 dB. That's JUST the road noise. Inside the building in the shop with all the fans running it'll be 92-93 dB for 9 hours straight in the summer. Earplugs are a must. I have permanent hearing loss due to the constant noise from the fans, etc. My ears ring continually and the left is no good. The noise from daily working conditions are typically louder/more dangerous than anything near the house but I get paid to work, I don't get paid to listen to these moronic illegal truck drivers waking me up at just after 5am every day.