Sound Check!

[bigtom17]

I am curious of the sound checks for the XR650R. I am going to a race soon and I have never had my bike sound checked. I have a Big Gun Pipe/with Quiet series core on it. Big Gun says it will stay under 94db. What kind of experience to you guys have with sound checks and with what pipes???

[smashinz2002]

Hi. First of all, that pipe is quiet enough, yes. Secondly, if you have a Big Gun pipe on it, I'm surprised that it hasn't failed yet. In fact, i'm amazed you even got it to fit at all in the first place. My Big Gun pipe was a pile of junk, it was a terrible fit, and after a few months, it began to leak at the rivets in the front part of silencer. Pile of junk, I went back to the stock pipes and am weary of any aftermarket stuff now. Sure, the power was improved with the Big Gun headers and silencer, but not by much. It was a huge waste of almost 500 bucks.

Also the springs that hold the two header pieces together are A)useless, since the pipes didn't fit right to begin with, and ? one of the springs failed, cracking at the hook, and falling off.

I had the stock system stripped and powder coated with high temp, and re-installed them, a perfect and trouble free fit. Also, with the stock pipes, you have a lot of variety in sound output. You can go stock tip, stock jetting (not recommended), you can drill the stock tip to 34mm, or 36mm, and jet accordingly (less than 94db), or you can get the 40mm tip and jet to 175, 3rd position with competition needle (loud but not bad, and good power). Stock pipes are tuned for low rpm torque and high throttle response, no matter what exhaust tip you use. The Big Gun pipes I had were tuned for a lot of mid-range and top-end; however, if you don't rev the crap out of your bike all the time, you would never be able to get the potential out of those Big Gun pipes, and I for one, prefer more low end torque for the type of riding I do.

[Terrain Rider 4z]

Smashin'

I agree with you. I had a SuperCrapp on my 600 when I bought it. That thing was louder than my upstairs neighbors! Beyond the noise, it took away from the low end. I could have taken a bunch of discs out, but it didn't fit well and that bugged me. I found a stock exhaust, put a WB Hot Tip in, and now I have a useable power band for the woods and it is very quiet. A few of the older guys around here with lots of XR experience have said that aftermarket pipes are not an improvement unless you have altered your engine for increased power output, such as a cam.

[Guest Guest]

I have the FMF Ti-4 slip-on on my stock unrestricted bike w/stock headers. The pipe is a little louder than stock, but the low end is improved as well as top end. Upper-mid feels about the same. The bike is much more fun to ride, is lighter is the back (high placed weight too) and sounds better, not quite so "hollow" like the stock uncorked pipe. Looks way cooler too!

[bigtom17]

I am not going to argue with the big gun, it didn't come with any hardware to couple to header pipes so I am using a car muffler clamp (heavy) to couple the two pieces. I should probably address that some day. Besides all that, does anyone have numbers, i.e. decibals range? And how do they sound check at the AMA events????

[smashinz2002]

The Big Gun race series complete exhaust system that I had exceeded the DB range you required, by a long shot, it's only useful for Baja as far as I can tell, or MX. Yes, it's that loud. Very LOUD! My bike was measured at 105db and I don't know how accurate their measuring system was, but in any case I was excluded with that pipe in place, another reason I went back to the stocker. For 4-stoke MX, it's ok, I don't know what AMA event you were being tested for though.