Good morning. Just installed a D&D FC with the wrapped performance baffle. Sounded good on my inaugural ride but...........took my wife out and she about had a stroke. If i change to the louvered (quiet) baffle will the bike require retuning...again? Thanks much.

 

It shouldn't.

 

I went back and forth between the 2 when I had a 96 inch, no difference in tune. I now have a 107 and don't really have a choice because the louvered baffle doesn't do well above 103 (according to D&D).

 

 

Hey Nomad,
Did you notice any great performance loss by going to the louvered baffle?
Thanks.

 

You're not gonna wanna hear this; yes. There was a pronounced drop off at 2900 rpm and up. That said, it did improve felt torque below that.

Personally, I'd just wear earplugs. There really isn't a great deal of difference in loudness in my opinion (between the 2 baffles). Not enough to justify the power loss anyway. Some people don't think D&D Fatcats are loud but I did the day I put it on. Now that my bike is a built 107 I'm very careful about my neighbors; there's loud and then there's loud as f*ck. It's the second one now. Thankfully, since my neighborhood is primarily older people and they don't have to take their cars to anyplace but my driveway when they need service, brakes and the like; they're very understanding.

A new baffle from D&D is like 190.00 plus 15.00 shipping.

 

Most tuners will disagree with that statement...

 

What I said was:

I switched between a louvered and wrapped perforated baffle with the same tune. I didn't say it didn't change things, I said that's what I did.

If your statement is that most tuners say that the louvered baffle DOES do well with engines larger than 103 CI; that has not been D&Ds or my experience.

 

Crazy world to live in when we talk exhaust isn't it? "Noticeable", "significant", "too loud/quiet"......all so subjective. And darned expensive to keep experimenting. In this case my stock '15 Ltd 103 was making about 95 pounds of torque with Freedom Performance true duals and a Rush headpipe. This past month I went to the D&D described above and TMan 555T cams. Boom! Jumps to 117 pounds of torque and runs great! Almost everyone happy!! Except Wifey. LOL I am hoping that the louvered baffle will just take the edge off the sound. If I wind up somewhere between where I was and where it is currently maybe everyone will have smiles on their faces. Thanks for all the input guys.

 

Sorry, I didn't cut down your quote to just the part about louvered not being good on anything bigger than 103". I know what D&D says, and I sell a lot of them. Of the 4 softails between my Dad and me, three of them are running Fat Cats, we really like and believe in their pipes. My point (and what I should have said) was the tuners I know all prefer the louvered to the perforated baffles for making torque. According to the D&D site I should be using a Boarzilla on my 117" softail build. After speaking with D&D and tuners in my area we determined since I was not chasing peak numbers and wanted to keep as much power to the left side of the graph as possible the best choice was the regular Fat Cat (with perf baffle) over the Zilla. I am curious what swapping mufflers to a louvered baffle would do to my curve and numbers though!