Have you thought you would like to make your motorcycle sound a little better, as if you have a monster of an engine? If you remove the baffles from the exhaust, will this give the desired effect? Will the performance increase?
Removing the baffles from your motorcycle will make your motorcycle louder without a doubt. It may even make your motorcycle illegal to use! You will not benefit from any gains in performance, and there are none.
Your motorcycle will run leaner and hence hotter, causing accelerated wear on your components.
Is it wrong to run a motorcycle without baffles?
Yes, for many reasons. You will become the bane of your neighbour’s lives as you destroy the environment and peace with your loud exhaust note from your motorcycle.
You will find that your exhaust has been purposely designed for your motorcycle to meet noise pollution requirements, emission requirements and most of all, to give the best performance from your engine.
Removing your baffles from your exhaust could invalidate the warranty on your motorcycle so take advice before you proceed with the removal.
Baffles help to protect your engine. Once removed, your engine will run much hotter.
A hot running engine out of specification will result in premature wear and tear to your engine’s components and a reduction in performance.
Guess what! A hotter engine leads to a hotter exhaust. If your exhaust is hot, it will inevitably lead to burning your boots or worse skin.
Do baffles affect performance?
Removing baffles affects the performance of your motorcycle, but the effects are adverse, which you may not have expected.
Just because your motorcycle sounds as if it should be fast now that the baffles are removed, it doesn’t translate into reality.
You will experience a power reduction when removing the baffles from an exhaust.
Do you have to retune after removing the baffles?
When you remove the baffles, you will alter the power curve of your motorcycle. You will lose power on the low end due to a lean mixture.
Your OEM exhaust is designed for specific characteristics of your air to fuel ratio mixture. This is altered without baffles, so you will need to retune to alter the air ratio.
Retuning may give you back the lost performance on the low end, and you could experience some performance gain at higher revs.
Do baffles create back pressure?
Yes. Your bike’s exhaust system is designed for the output of your engine. Your engine will run smoother with the back pressure created from the OEM exhaust.
By altering the backpressure (the word backpressure is a misnomer), you will alter the RMP of the motorcycle.
The backpressure helps with scavenging in the cylinders for better performance.
The only time you don’t want or need backpressure in an exhaust system is if you have a turbo fitted, this is why you see turbo cars with huge exhaust pipes.
Considering everything, removing your baffles gives a tiny advantage and maybe a disadvantage in most cases.