I found these motorcycle baffles on Ebay. They can be ordered in different diameters to fit inside Lake Pipes. They even come with an installed collar, that we tack welded in, and slides flush into the pipe. They come closed on the ends, so I drilled them out for more flow. You can talk normally next to the '53 Buick with a SBC at idle, and it sounds like a full exhaust with glass packs at full roar.
Did you wrap the baffles in fiberglass or pack steel wool around them before inserting them into the pipes?
So they don't really reduce volume. I would try wrapping them or packing them to absorb higher frequencies, tone down the exhaust note. Some steel wool would probably be the easiest to find, but condensation in the exhaust will cause it to rust and then it will eventually blow out. Some fiberglass packing would be great. Or go traditional and get some metal shavings from a machine shop and pack that in there. The way those baffles work is the holes allow sound waves to exit out of the exhaust stream, high frequencies travel faster than lower frequencies, so they will exit through the holes, and if you add some packing it will trap those frequencies and lower the exhaust volume and mellow out the tone. Try it.
If I was allowed to post a video you would hear it is muffled just enough. No packing. It's not an open exhaust sound at all. I hate to tell you you're wrong, but you are. Lol.
Speedway makes these, and they have a straight section on the engine end. Plenty of room for these to slide in. I used a manual pipe expander inside, until it just slid in flush using the collar.
If you need material inside to baffle, I have used stainless steel scouring pads you can buy it in bulk at the hardware shop and it last for years
Hello, Nice find and addition to your Buick Sedan. If it is a daily driver, watch out for the “idle aroma” to come into your sedan. It can be obnoxious and “silently deadly.” In So Cal, exhaust ahead of the rear wheel is not legal. Nice looking, but not legal. We tried back in our teenage days with lakes pipes open under a lowered 51 Oldsmobile sedan. The chromed lakes pipes lasted several weeks and then sold to a sedan owner whose car was not lowered. At the time, we all had legal extended muffler system in place, but a “Y” section in the welded, attached, exhaust lakes pipes allowed us to cap and uncap the ends. First, it looked cool, but the low rake stance was not friendly to the low pipes. Second, when we opened the caps, even with closed windows in the sedan allowed fumes to come inside and it was awful. So, be leery of constant fumes. Despite the cool sounds coming from the pipes. One of the first to install motorcycle baffles inside of straight pipes was added to these smooth flow headers. Similar in looks to the old Scotty’s Muffler Service Modified Roadster. But, these were for the smooth sounding T-Bucket of Fred Castro from the Prowlers Car Club of San Diego. I did a photo story of this cool looking design and the pipes were “baffling,” (pun intended) as to why straight pipes sounded so quiet. Standing next to the running motor, one would have thought real mufflers were in place on all 8 individual pipes. Not so… Going for a ride in the open t-bucket roadster was exhilarating to say the least. We were so low to the ground, I could almost reach out and touch the ground that was whizzing by quietly. We could actually have a normal voice conversation during our ride. Jnaki It was fun to photograph the cool, well built roadster for a photo story. Riding around in it taught me how creative hot rod folks could be with their builds. Thanks, Fred… Note: At the time, our Harley Sportster was changed over from the stock muffler system to an individual exhaust pipe set with mufflers. They were rated 88 decibels. It was loud and sounded nice on acceleration and just sitting at a stop light. But, after a long 50 mile ride, it took some time to readjust to clarity in our hearing… not just “what did you say?” kind of conversation. YRMV
I just ordered dirt bike silencer fiberglass to wrap mine with. I need to kill the high tones of the lakester pipes on my AV8 roadster. I must be getting old.
Back 60 years ago I had a little 4 cylinder car that I put a 4 ft scavenger pipe on as a straight pipe and rolled up a square of hardware cloth and slid it into the pipe and drilled holes for a bolt to hold it in. That was a fairly effective low buck muffler at the time.
https://www.carchemistry.com/3-disk-insert-2-3-4-diameter/ I put these in my pipes about 6" behind my mufflers...like those you used there are numerous ways to install them wrapping, packing using different combinations of rings and caps...very tunable really...I opted for no wrap/packing and they still brought the decibels down to 90 from 110 which was pretty dramatic but its still loud and pushes 100 at speed with some of it due to wind whistling through the unsealed seams of my rolling brick...yours being a much later Custom is no doubt sealed and deadened but I get wanting the rumble as it's part of the ambience...
I always get confused with Lakes Pipes and what I have is I believe called Lakes Headers...completely different but I guess pipes and headers is the separation of the two realities...I wonder if Lakes was a company that produced both...
@jnaki Do you remember more about the baffle he used in the T pipes? I've seen them for 6 bucks to 60 bucks and hate to spend much on them (times 8) and find out they don't work or block too much.
Can you post a pic of the end, looking through them? I tried this and it was way too restrictive. The ones I bought reduced the inside diameter too much. The engine would lay down at full throttle. I can’t have that shit. I used stainless steel wool , made for muffler packing. Worked best for me.
I'll never forget this old timer Hotrodder that I met at a cruise in Guelph Ontario running header into pipe somewhat similar but shorter to what RodstRace just shared and I saw him coming in and wondered how he got them so quiet...he said he used old baffles and wrapped them in asbestos......needless to say Hotrodding may be hazardous to your health...heck maybe it was a lot more common than one would imagine...
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