AMA on noise
 

FYI, AMA position paper on "louder than stock" motorcycle exhaust systems.

http://www.noiseoff.org/media/ama.motorcycle.noise.pdf

AMA has always been against excessive motorcycle noise. Just now laws are finally catching up. Sanctioned events motcross etc are testing and setting lower limits. 4 stroke bikes are loud as hell when uncorked. Ever sit on the line before a moto with 40 other whacko's on 250F's pinned wide open? The oems need to step up and make quieter bikes with the same power levels. **** a little power loss won't hurt them anyways, the modern 4 stroke is getting pretty crazy.

dcb -

I was soooo confused! I thought it was the *other* AMA, the American Medical Association, :D .

Eats bean A long day.

CarloSW2

I sure wouldn't mind quieter bikes. I live in Harley town USA, and 99% of the bikes I encounter I can hear from a mile away. At first you don't mind it, but when it never stops it starts to get annoying. Even the crotch rocket guys feel the need rip off the OEM mufflers and tear around everywhere.

I know the feeling. There's an annual Harley tourist thing here every fall. I live far enough from the major highway that I can barely hear normal traffic, but get a few thousand Harleys running up and down the road, and the noise level is unbearable even inside the house.

So far I've managed to get out of town on that weekend, but I dread the chance of a time when I can't. It'd be me on a hill with the AK-47 and about a thousand rounds.

It's something I don't understand at all: I've ridden motorcycles most of my life, but I always liked mine quiet. Even sold one Yamaha after a few weeks 'cause it was too loud. What makes people want to make noise like that? Is it just insecurity that makes them feel like big bad dudes 'cause they've got loud pipes?

"loud pipes save lives" has been a saying for years. Unofrtanately the AMA and many others(myself included) don't support that thinking. Until harley owners and sport bike riders alike get it through there pee brains that noise doesn't save your life noise restrictions will get tighter. California is crazy with banning OHV riding. Think about it there are places that you can't ride your atv,motorcycle on your pwn PRIVATE land! Its crazy I know Jeremy McGrath went to court over that, fighting for his right to ride. Personally I wish they made a law that all bikes had to be like 80 decibels at the tail pipe. have laws strictly enforced by taking offending bikes away/huge fines. Harleys have always annoyed me, loud sport bikes do at time s too. **** even Moto bikes can be annoying when idiots don't run packing in the silencer.

Yeah. And what compels all those a******s to remove packing/baffling?

People in the off road world are finally coming around to the noise issues, but I think it will be a long time before the street (*cough*Harley*cough*) crowd breaks tradition to accept it.

I'm part of an off road racing organization where we must pass sound check for every race. 96 dB is the current limit, because that's what Arizona law currently is. 4 strokes are DEFINETELY harder to pass than the 2 strokes. Most 4 strokes can barely squeek by, and any of the 4 stroke MX bikes need a quite silencer/tip to pass. We've had guys show up throwing 105-110 dB range. I am still amazed at the difference sound-wise between our races and going to the local MX. Some of those bikes are painfully loud there, because no one cares! Noise = power to most people!

Quite bikes can be done, but it's going to be hard to get the consumer to accept that. Yamaha made a big leap going to a mechanical muffler on the YZ450F, cutting sound a large amount. Guess what everyone does? Ditches that silencer for an aftermarket one, because you can get 3-4 hp that way. Never mind that test riders and guys in the know actually say you can pull faster lap times with the smoother, more linear power of the stock silencer. I at one time set my old KX125 up to be ubber quiet. Quiet silencer, airbox baffle, lots of foam everywhere (around airbox, above lid/baffle, under engine, etc). It actually blew only 78dB on the race mic. There was still a lot of sound coming from the expansion chamber, but it was a big impovement, and still had plenty of power for a B level off road racer.

Anyway, in 10 years we won't have to worry about this because either
A) All forms of recreational fun will be shut down
or
B) Electric bikes will catch on. KTM has one in the works, and I'm ready for it. :)

"Loud pipes save lives" is just an excuse to dink with the bike. Nobody can substantiate the claim that they save lives. It "justifies" spending $800 on customization to the wifey. I'm all for customization, but loudness is just too overdone these days, now it's just noise and obnoxious.

Personally, I'd rather have a low really good sound quality than lots of just plain noise.

One thing I thought I'd add.

Manufacturers aren't helping the noise issue either!!!!

Yamaha now puts a quiet silencer on their YZ450F. Everyone talks about how much quieter it is than the competition, yet it sound checks the loudest. Why? Because Kawasaki, Honda, and Suzuki would rather "cheat" the system than build a quiet bike. They use ignition timing to quiet things down when running higher rpms and no load. This means the quiet Yamaha might blow 100 dB, but the Kawasaki that is painfully loud only shows 95 dB on the meter. This does NOTHING to help us in the battle to quiet things down and save riding areas!