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LOUD PIPES - University research into loud pipes “myth”

10K views 83 replies 19 participants last post by  CXPHREAK 
#1 ·
#2 ·
I won't dispute the study (it only confirms what I've been saying for decades) but speaking as someone who studied the measurement of sound in college many years ago, the author of the article has a very poor understanding of what sound pressure level is and how it is measured.
 
#4 ·
Harley Davidson motor cycle new model
Comes with forward facing pipes.Yes that's a special option
That.s the only way the motorist will hear the bike sooner

By the way they don't like when you tell them that

 
#9 ·
#7 ·
many moons ago F*Gs were just a confectionery.....

 
#10 ·
I think f*gs got the chop not because they were politically incorrect but that they mimicked a tobacco product and were targeted at children.

Big boss cigars have also been renamed. I can't remember to what.

Edit, whatayaknow .... the forum edits the word **** thusly.

The branding of f*gs in Australia may not have been homophobic. F*gs was Australian slang for ciggies. In the US it had a very different meaning.
 
#12 ·
F*gs was Australian slang for ciggies.
Also in the UK and Ireland, and maybe NZ too?
The term is still very widely used here: "Popping out for a f*g.", "Having a f*g break.", "I am 'aving a f*g!" (the last one from Wayne and Waynetta Slob, in Harry Enfield and chums on TV)
We also have a traditional pork meat product called f*ggots...
 
#16 ·
And we wont mention spotted d***:LOL:
A school and works canteen favourite, with loads of custard!

We had a chap at work named Richard Large (I kid you not). What were his parents thinking? None of us called him by the shortened version of his first name (he was a genuinely nice chap)...he must have had enough of that at school!
 
#11 ·
yes found the edit....:p
I could make a lurid comment about big boss cigars...but wont....but good to discourage all tobacco including the chewin' type....

Times have changed and rightly so...remember being in high school while our canadian teacher was chewing tobacco and shared some on the sports field with those who wanted to indulge....
 
#17 ·
I like engine sounds. Around here, loud pipes seem to go with no helmet and you rarely get a nod or wave back from those folks.
 
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#19 ·
A f a g g o t is a bundle of sticks used for kindling, commonly abbreviated to "f a g", which is how the term became used for a cigarette (any pipe smoker will tell you cigarettes aren't good for much except lighting fires). How the term came to refer to a homosexual I don't know.
(Note to Admins: I am offended that I had to type in these words with spaced so that the software didn't censor them. They are perfectly acceptable terms and anyone who is offended by them used as above has problems that censoring words won't help.)

As for gay, that just means happy. I remember that someone decided it wasn't happy with homosexuals being called "queer" (which really just means strange or different) and decided they would have a more positive image if they called themselves "gay" instead and a lot of people were upset about them ruining a perfectly good word for everyone else (when the Flintstones Theme said "we'll have a gay old time" it meant prehistoric fun).

Re loud pipes: I haven't had a bike with the original mufflers for a long time. I used to like them fairly loud but that lost its appeal after I had to ride behind a buddy's Harley with some obnoxious aftermarket noisemakers for an hour so after a car made a left turn across the path of the loud piped GoldWing (one more crash they didn't prevent) I wanted something with a more reasonable sound level on the next one.
I currently have Harley mufflers on both of mine; The current GoldWing came with just headers (everything else had rotted off while it sat for a decade (outside for 6 of those years) and I had very little to spend on it so it got what was cheap and they are still on it 24 years later (I might finally replace them this year if I can get to the local aftermarket HD place). They are a bit louder than stock but not uncivilized and a few non-bikers have told me they sound good.
Eccles came with aftermarket repros of the originals that were so loud I could barely hear the stereo so they got changed at first opportunity (it's on its 2nd set of HD mufflers now - winter is hard on stuff).
 
#74 ·
A f a g g o t is a bundle of sticks used for kindling, commonly abbreviated to "f a g", which is how the term became used for a cigarette (any pipe smoker will tell you cigarettes aren't good for much except lighting fires). How the term came to refer to a homosexual I don't know.
The reference to homosexuals goes back to a time period in England when they would be burned alive similar to bundle of sticks.
 
#20 ·
"There's nothing gay about being queer" Sir Ian McKellen.

In world war 2 gay was a common word in use with British soldiers.

A battle of Britain pilot killed in action would be eulogised as "the gayest of the gay".

They meant he was a party animal.

Context changes with time.
 
#22 ·
I do like the sound of a inline 4 or 6
That's the reason I bought the Kawasaki Z900RS 2020 model
stock pipe sounds so good just the right note on the tune coming from the big s/s muffler
most of the V twin's with straight pipe sounds like a old Massey Ferguson
combine with a broken manifold
Open header's on a V8 with lots of compression 14:1 that sounds sexy
 
#25 · (Edited)
returning to "loud pipes", as I am guilty of the digression.....it would be interesting to know what bikes were used.
Any difference between lower frequency 4 strokes and howling 2 strokes?
Just a thought.

Interestingly there is mixed research on "lights on" from what i recall....

 
#26 · (Edited by Moderator)
When the motorcycle daytime headlight law was introduced here I was on a moped. I don't know how much of my perception was affected by being on 2 wheels myself but I remember that I noticed motorcycles in traffic a lot more with their headlights on than I did before they had them on in the daytime.
I've said it before: If daytime headlights on bikes made motorcyclists safer because car drivers noticed them more that was taken away when they started requiring daytime headlights on cars too. Now bikes just blend into the crowd in heavy traffic.
 
#27 ·
You are better off with the light off if you have sunset/sunrise behind you. A headlight actually helps you to blend in in these poor visibility circumstances.

The choice should belong to those with their neck in the noose though I do agree that most of the time headlight on can't hurt and often helps.
 
#29 ·
OK I read the whole thing, all I can say is bullshit. I doubt if the tested a my Harleys.
I did the test with my wife in the car and me riding behind her. She had no problem hearing the bikes at 30 feet behind the car. They said the radio was set at 20 decibels. Normal conversation Is 60 decibels. However they did say lower frequencies were heard. Yea like a Harley!

BS on this article.
 
#30 ·
As I said before, the reporter doesn't really understand sound measurement enough to interpret the study's findings. That doesn't mean the study itself is wrong, only that he doesn't know how to explain it clearly.

I don't know about your wife's car specifically but I've been in cars that were passed by bikes with loud mufflers lots of times over the years and you almost never hear them over the ambient sound in the car (tire & engine noise, wind noise &c) until the bike is right next to it.
And besides, we all know that the most common type of car/motorcycle collision is caused by an oncoming car turning across the bike's path. It should be obvious to anyone that the bulk of the sound produced by the exhaust is projected behind the bike, in exactly the opposite direction from where drivers of oncoming cars are.
 
#31 ·
As offensive as overly loud exhausts are they can at best be considered a passive safety device like high vis and lights on.

I have absolutely no faith in any of these measures and take a more active approach to my on road safety.

I'll be kind here and just say that many drivers are plain oblivious to much that goes on around them.
 
#32 ·
Loud pipes on the highway are not a nuisance since people usually have their windows rolled up and the tunes on.
Loud pipes are a nuisance when they drive thru my neighborhood when I an on the deck trying to have a nice conversation with somebody or at night when I am in bed with the windows open listening to the crickets.
 
#33 ·
FWIW...re loud pipes its probably difficult to get the orientation/direction right.
The study in the original post had the drivers with a radio on....

I know I've been in a busy city centre (Sydney)/tallbuilings with full face helmet...could here a siren...but difficult to determine the direction...It was a paramedic BMW R1200..zooming down the main street at ?100km/hr...
 
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