A while back you mentioned that Vern was testing some new (Flowmaster?) mufflers on a flathead, and that they sounded great. Can you tell us anything more? Are they in production, and is there a name or number to identify them?
Posies had a new Flowmaster muffler on display at his open house that I've never seen before. It looked like the one Mike was talking about. It had what appeared to be cone shaped mesh baffles on both ends with one end marked inlet. Being long and narrow it would be a lot easier to install on a hot rod. I need to check with my supplier.
Haven't heard them yet, but my Flowmaster rep says they are unbelieveable. Of course, I asked him if they sound anything like a Smithy's and he just said "huh?"
part of that $167.00 is paying Vern for the "authenticratrodpatina" endor*****t IMHO nothing,and i mean nothing,sounds better than blown out gl***packs with rustholes...
At that cost I hope they sound better than the smithys behind my flatty! I'm running reds headers and 1-3/4" pipes and I personally think they sound like ***. I would be interested in hearing what these sound like if they get an audio file out sometime.
With all this talk about mufflers etc., why not give some thought to making your own? My muffler shop owning friend started making mufflers of his own design a couple years back. A fairly simple, but noisy muff. Best part was it's small and fits in a lot of tight areas. Now he has an outfit up north cutting the components out and he ***embles them in his shop. He's not too far away from subcontracting them out. The muffs have some aspects similar to an FM, but are even smaller. Best part is, they have a gl***pack-like tone and subjective testing shows them to improve HP as much as the FMs The easy way out - IMHO - would be to get some tubing and do something along the lines of a Maxim* silencer and pack it with steel wool. Better yet may be the longer cuttings from lathes etc. That stuff should be free at any shop. I've thought about saving some of the aluminum cuttings from my own lathe stuff and packing a home-made muff with that, but haven't got around to it. Kind of a backburner deal, but if it worked I'd have a muffler I could call a "Billet-Pack." May not work in some crowds, but what the heck, we're not in this hobby to make other people happy.... *Maxim is the inventor of the machine gun as well as a very effective silencer for guns. Illegal on guns of course, but the sound attenuating characteristics of the silencer could work well to make a reasonably quiet muff that flowed well.
The Flowmaster site that is linked above has a sound clip. They sound pretty good to me..... Although hard to get a comparison.
they sound pretty good, but they look absolutly terrible(like a long peformance catyltic) i know it sounds stupid to judge a muff based on apperance ,but lets face it a trad. car is all about the look!