Why are motorcycles so loud (especially choppers)? Isn’t there anything can be done with their mufflers?
In: Engineering
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).
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