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Exh Syst Replacement (continued) - the Quest for Quiet

Gulfsurfer

Gulfsurfer

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Well, after replacing the stock system with a Diamondeye 4" system over the holidays (http://www.thetruckstop.us/forum/showthread.php?t=19218), I found the sound too loud for my liking. The exhaust tone sounded good when the engine was unloaded, but under load it was really loud. This vehicle is my tow vehicle, usually hooked up 95% of the time to any one of the 4 trailers I regulary tow, ranging in weight from 2,000 to 10,000.

So I searched for a quieter muffler than the Diamondeye straight thru glass pack:

BTM and Diamondeye glass pack.jpg Diamondeye straight thru.jpg BTM straight thru.jpg

The first alternative muffler I tried was the Wagner "Big Truck Muffler", shown in the pic above-left, it's the longer muffler next to the shorter stainless steel Diamondeye muffler that came with the exhaust kit. The middle pic shows the Diamondeye muffler's straight thru design, as is the BTM shown at right. The BTM is longer than the Diamondeye but it is not glass packed. I didn't know that when I ordered the BTM. I thought the longer length would quiet the exhaust, it didn't though. No glass packing gave it a raspy "industrial" sound (that's the only way I can descirbe it). What it did do though, was make the turbo sing like you wouldn't believe :smile5: However, what I wanted was quiet. The search continued:


Diamondeye-BTM-Hushpower.jpg Hushpower chambers.jpg Hushpower inlet.jpg

I then ordered a "wife pleaser" muffler from SSDiesel (I know, what a wuss-sounding name!). See pic above left, it's the muffler to the right. It turns out it's actually manufactured by Heartthrob. They have a great website, but you can only purchase their products thru a dealer. It's cheap anyway thru SSD ($89).

It's a longer muffler than the Diamondeye muffler, not as long as the BTM though. It's not glass packed either but it is chambered and it is fatter (8" vs 7"). The middle pic above shows how they chamber it, it's actually just an eccentric divider plate halfway thru. That divider plate and the larger diameter appears to do the trick with regard to reducing noise levels.

The pic above right shows that it does have a preferred installation orientation, the open end of the louvers inside the muffler's flowpath will point "upstream". I followed that orientaion. I know that some guys reverse their mufflers to point the louvers' opeings downstream, but I figured Heartthrob knows more than I do about mufflers and noise levels.

It's tone is much nicer than stock ("rumbly") but much quieter than either the Diamondeye muffler or the BTM under load. Turbo whine is still apparent (less than the BTM though) and performance hasn't degraded appreciably from the Diamondeye straight thru muffler. It's a keeper!!!

BTW, if I hadn't used the band type exhaust clamps, I wouldn't have been able to swap these mufflers out very easily. I did each muffler swap in about an hour, counting having to cut fill-in pipes to account for differing muffler lengths.

I'll be posting the Diamondeye and BTM mufflers in the classified section, in case anyone wants to buy them for pretty cheap. They have prolly less than 5 hrs run time each.
 
what do you mean band typ exhaust clamps iv never heard of them.
i have a muffler from SSD and i dont like in its not the "wife pleaser" but im going to take it off and make it a straight pipe. I like loud
 
chevyCowboy said:
what do you mean band typ exhaust clamps iv never heard of them.
i have a muffler from SSD and i dont like in its not the "wife pleaser" but im going to take it off and make it a straight pipe. I like loud
Click to expand...


Ya...some people like it loud... There is a serious side to this though. I work in the process industry; refineries and chem plants. We're constantly educated in Hearing Conservation.

About thirty years ago, I noticed that when I would go into friend's houses, I'd see the old man in the recliner watchin TV. Hey Mr. so&so, how ya doing? "Whatcha say?", he'd say as he turned the TV down from level 10 :nonod: Usually his family would complain about how loud he kept the volume on. That generation had no awareness of cumulative hearing loss. Once you lose it, it doesn't come back. Now, if you're trying to drown out the noise coming from the passenger seat occupant... that's a diff story :D

I wear ear plugs and ear muffs for all my power tool usage and keep a handful in all my vehicles. You wouldn't believe how many ear plugs I give out to workers I see in the commercial settings as I'm just going about my daily life. Those poor guys get no education compared to the industrial workers. They usually thank me and tell me their boss doesn't provide ear plugs. OK, I'm getting off my soapbox now. :grouphug:

I don't have a pic of a band clamp handy, see this thread, second to last pic:

http://www.thetruckstop.us/forum/showthread.php?t=19218

Good luck w/ ur rebuild!
 
i know what you mean about protecting your hearing i work with steel and not much about it is quite especialy Grinders! i hate grinders with a passion but its kind of a love hate thing. i try to wear ear plugs if im doing alot of something that is loud but i know i dont as much as i should.
 
I have purchaced exhaust systems from hearthrob direct. I went and picked them up myself[only 25 miles away]. I ended up paying more than if I would have ordering from walt. It didn't make sense because they would have shipped it across the country twice.I may become a dealer. Hearthrob is also sold by J.C. Whitney.
 
Surfer. When you installed the DE muffler, which way did you have the louvers facing?

I know what you mean about the hearing loss inconvenience. Mine drops from normal at 250hz to a 80db loss at 4khz. You could say I only have about 30% of my usable hearing left. Sucks when you are only 42.
 
Thanks for the write up.

I will be going with that muffler on my DMAX - I am past the 'louder is better' mentality I used to have....
 
Excellent write up!


I've also found that the longer the muffler, the more resonance it's gonna have.

On my 04, I ran a Magnaflow for about 3 years. While it did sound awesome, it had a nasty drone between 68-72 mph, pretty much exactly the speeds that I drive.

I ended up switching to an MBRP muffler and retained all the Magnaflow tubing. The MBRP was actually 8" longer when I compared them side by side. The louvers inside were also a different design than the Magnaflow muffler had.

I lost all my drone and for whatever reason, the turbo got loud as hell. So naturally, when I traded in for my 07, an MBRP was my first muffler of choice.

MBRP:
 

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96 OILBURNER said:
Surfer. When you installed the DE muffler, which way did you have the louvers facing?

I know what you mean about the hearing loss inconvenience. Mine drops from normal at 250hz to a 80db loss at 4khz. You could say I only have about 30% of my usable hearing left. Sucks when you are only 42.
Click to expand...
no kidding,i (had) a friend who thought he was funny,he discharged a 12 gauge shot gun with the muzzle a foot away from my left ear,i was deaf in that ear for a week after. The hearing came back somewhat,but i ended up with a constant ring in it,drives me nuts some times.:mad2:
I should have sued the SOB when i had the chance.
 
96 OILBURNER said:
Surfer. When you installed the DE muffler, which way did you have the louvers facing?

The DE muffler didn't have louvers, it had a perforated flowtube with fiberglass between the flowtube and the outer shell, so it was bi-directional. The BTM was the only one of the 3 that I tried that had louvers.
Click to expand...
 
bison said:
[/B]no kidding,i (had) a friend who thought he was funny,he discharged a 12 gauge shot gun with the muzzle a foot away from my left ear,i was deaf in that ear for a week after. The hearing came back somewhat,but i ended up with a constant ring in it,drives me nuts some times.:mad2:
I should have sued the SOB when i had the chance.
Click to expand...

What you describe may be tinnitus (not sure about spelling). Siemens and others have a hearing aid that may help with that. I did some work once for a hearing aid manufacturer and at the time (8 tyrs ago), that was a breakthrough technology back then. It actually can be a very debillitating (spelling again?) condition.
 
I'm happy as can be with my CORSA. It isn't a cheap muffler by any means as it is all stainless steel, but the quietness pays for cost. I got mine through ALLIGATOR and he matched the price that I had found from a local shop. When you just cruisng along it sounds completely stock, but as soon as you give her the juice she comes to life and growls at yeah nicely but not overpowering. It is LOUD outside, but inside if you have the windows up you don't really notice it. When I drive past a tall wall or something I roll the passenger side windows down and give her some throttle and the sound is NICE.

It isn't much longer than the DIAMOND EYE muffler, but it is much larger around. Also it is a straight through design with NO restrictions inside of it. It uses louvers inside the center bore to allow the sound waves to hit chambers and baffles to cancel the noise, yet the inside is a smooth 4" straight through path with no louvers sticking up.
 
The louvers are a pretty cool design indeed. After I bought my 4" stack kit from SSdiesel :mad2: I went a bought a 4" MBRP muffler as the SSdiesel kit didn't have a muffler. I love how it sounds(waiting on friggin winter to end!) It has a great roar to it when you need it, but its pleasant enough for passengers and whatnot.

Gotta make a video of it all once spring rolls around and I take the canopy off to go back to stacks :D Combine with the lift and new tires(I hope) it should look great this summer :D:D
 
The muffler from Heath Diesel sounds very quiet at idle and there is a pleasant roar over 2500 plus RPM, not too loud. Standing next to it as it was backing out of the pits, you could hear the shuffling of feet on the tarp as the crew guided him out.


watch
 
I don't like obnoxious loud pipes, but I don't like quiet ones either. I just want a tough sounding v8 rumble. I am pretty happy with my Diamondeye 4 inch with reversed muffler, but it exits a half mile away from the drivers seat and is hidden behind the right rear duals, so it couldn't be further from my ears.
If you want quiet, check out Banks. I put a Stinger system on my truck when I first got it, and it was unbelievably quiet. All you could hear at idle was air whooshing out the tip, sounded like wind, but you couldn't hear any engine or exhaust noise. It was a huge can too, like an RV muffler. It was a 3.5 inch though, don't know if they have it in 4 inch. I always thought the Stinger would be good for a repo truck, you could be sneaky quiet.
When the Banks rotted out I straight-piped it at 3.5 inch, it sounded absolutely awesome, a little too loud pulling heavy on hills but otherwise the toughest sounding diesel around. And it didn't sound retarded like an inline six with straight pipe does. Seriously, all those Dodge guys with open stacks or 5 inch tailpipe, it sounds like a big farm tractor, nothing sounds like a V8.
When the 3.5 straight rotted out I wanted to delete the muffler on the new Diamondeye 4 inch but I didn't quite dare, so I settled for reversing the muffler. If I didn't have to park at the police station or the courthouse every day, I probably would have dared go 4 inch straight piped.
 
Gulfsurfer, thanks for the excellent write-up! You do great write-ups with outstanding photos!

-Rob :)
 
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