Why are motorcycles so loud (especially choppers)? Isn’t there anything can be done with their mufflers?
In: Engineering
It is entirely on purpose. Period. There are motorcycles that you do not hear at all, beyond an expected normal sound. They do not sell as well or have difficulty modifying them to be loud.
It’s intentional. They could be muffled significantly. Buuuuttt:
First, sound dampening the engine on a bike is more bulky and more challenging because, well, there is no hood that you can nicely add dampening to or anything.
Second, motorcyclists and manufacturers will tell you that the loudness of them is a safety feature. Since they are much smaller than cars and don’t have significant horns like cars and trucks do, the loudness of the engine helps alert drivers on the road that a bike is there.
This is why in videos where a car is merging into a motorcycle or doesn’t realize they are there, the motorcyclists revs the engine super hard, it’s to make it really loud like a motorcyclist’s “honk”
its always on purpose. people remove db killers from their silencers or swap them out for essentially empty cans. its mostly a rider preference thing. some riders completely remove the silencer altogether lol. its annoying.
“Loud pipes saves lives” is utter bullshit. Loud motorcycles, especially the american V-twin type, are primarily fitted with aftermarket mufflers to make them louder. Why? Because the riders don’t feel “manly” enough with their riding buddies who all have loud mufflers, too.
I bought a used Harley Davidson with aftermarket mufflers. It wasn’t the loudest I’ve ever heard, but it was too loud for me, and I put stock mufflers on it. It was still loud enough to get attention.
When I traded it for a BMW motorcycle at a Harley Davidson dealer, they asked if my Harley had aftermarket mufflers. I told them my story and they asked me to put the aftermarket mufflers back on. Why? Because it would be easier for them to sell since Harley riders tend to like them Loud. See paragraph one.
By the way, the BMW is ten times the bike the Harley was in every way.
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My BMW motorcycle is nearly silent compared to any straight-piped V-twin motorcycle.
Someone else has commented already on the “loud pipes save lives” mantra.
I lean more towards the “everyone is out to kill me so I need to be overly cautious” mantra myself, but to each their own.
(Side note: ask any fire truck driver how they feel about “loud pipes” or “bright flashy lights” making it so other drivers see you and don’t pull out in front of you.)
100% intentional, these aren’t weed wackers or lawn mowers that have tiny soup cans for mufflers. In fact many are very quiet. For example: listen to a VStrom. It’s also pretty common for them to be rather quiet at low RPMs and driven easy but scream at higher RPMs. Which is a detail that is not restricted to bikes, force your car to shift late under hard acceleration and it will probably roar too. Both my ford ranger and my DR650 do this, quiet when driven easy but if you push em they get pretty loud. Now the bike does get louder and does so sooner than the truck and both are quieter than harleys but you get the idea. Which leads to some bikes the noise is “part of the brand/identity” Harleys these days are built very intentionally to sound like they do.
TLDR: same reason fast cars are loud: it’s fun. (generally)
Motorcycles have the fundamental problem that their exhausts are short and their mufflers are small.
I have a motorcycle with a relatively small engine, exhaust pipes that run the full length of the bike, and mufflers that weight 11kg *each*. It’s still loud.
About 10% of my bike is muffler. Nobody is going to fit a bigger muffler than that.
As you can probably imagine, anyone who wants to save weight (which matters on motorcycles more than cars, partly because you rarely push cars anywhere) will see an obvious weight saving to be made, and indeed smaller aftermarket ones exist. They are lounder.
These also appeal to dickheads who like being loud.
Some motorcyclists say that loudness is a safety feature. “Loud pipes save lives.” I don’t disagree, but I’ve never seen a fellow rider make that argument while wearing a high visibility vest. Loud shirts save lives too, but they aren’t as cool.
They are loud because that’s what sells. The ‘bad to the bone’ type want you to hear them, they think we’re impressed.
On a technical note, it’s very difficult to keep them quiet. These are very high output engines with little space, it’s hard to put a long/large enough exhaust on them. A car has a couple ot meters of exhaust pipe, and the space for a large muffler, bikes don’t.
If you take a Yamaha R6, it has 30% of the displacement of my 2.0 L car, but 70% of the power. That means high compression and very little mass. It’s just not something you can easily keep quiet. There are bikes that can be relatively quiet, but they’re larger, have large mufflers and generally have lower performance engines (specific output).
Loud choppers are the worst sounding things on the road. Hot garbage. All volume, no tone.
And I’m someone whos all for modding exhausts
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