Hacker News Reader

Comment by candiodari | Hacker News Reader

The reason exhausts are loud is that there is detonation happening inside the exhaust. This happens when you increase the fuel-air mixture above what the cylinders will support for combustion and often gives slightly (maybe 10%) better performance of the car, for the cost of much lower lifetime of many components (not just the cylinders), and of course making enough noise to wake the dead.

There's plenty of motorcyclists who do the same though.

View on HN

Even though what you describe has, for some reason, become much more common lately, many exhausts are just loud for no good reason. Think Harleys or even the Yamaha TMax with the Akrapovic exhaust. They don't have the "pop-pop-pop" sound related to detonations, but are still absurdly loud.

> There's plenty of motorcyclists who do the same though.

What's funny is that in my neck of the woods, it's motorcycles with bad aftermarket pipes that had been making that noise for a long time. So now, whenever I hear a car making that noise, instead of associating it with some "big mean engine" as their owners probably hope, I associate it with some overworked 600cc.

> Even though what you describe has, for some reason, become much more common lately, many exhausts are just loud for no good reason.

Not only that, they deliberately put speakers on the electric Harley's so the morons driving them could feel like "real men".

Honestly, if you want to make noise while looking ridiculous, just get a tuba and parade around the block!

What do you mean by speakers? As in for the radio? I've noticed that, too, but, fortunately, where I live they aren't that common yet.

What is common, though, is people on bicycles and kick scooters carrying a loud-ass speaker blasting random music. Reminds me of boomboxes in old American movies. Fortunately, that doesn't carry as far as the exhaust, so it's not a problem while I'm in my apartment, only when walking down the street.

> What do you mean by speakers? As in for the radio?

for the engine, so their electric motorcycle can still be loud and annoying -- evidently the whirring noise isn't "manly" enough for harley to sell

https://www.rideapart.com/news/316258/harley-livewire-custom...

No, by speakers I mean the audio output devices they've installed that replicate the noise effects of a gas engine, on an otherwise whisper-quiet electric Harley. Pointless, expensive features to keep clowns happy with their "outlaw" motorcyclist image.

Maybe some friendly neighborhood hacker can find a way to change all those sound tracks to Nyan Cat?

Wow. I'd heard about some cars using the stereo to blast "fake" engine noise inside when they switched to smaller, quieter engines, but never for bikes.

They're staying true to their mission: make the most efficient machine to convert fuel into noise!

A lot of motorcyclists just like the noise and they pass it off as a safety device (because they’re assholes).

"It's imperative to my safety that everyone wake up at 2AM to know I'm here"

Yeah the whole thing makes no sense. “I ride my motorcycle based on the assumption that people can hear me.” — no safe rider ever

In the US especially it seems to be the trend. I've ridden elsewhere where the problem seems to be less present (but not non-existent).

They pass it off as safety to make up for their lack of skill. It's honestly appalling the low amount of skill/practice needed to get a bike here in the states.

Some people optimize for the noise, and not performance, for the same reason people stick racing decals and put a spoiler on a car that doesn't really need it.

Heck, some people will literally drill a hole in the exhaust to get that noise, for absolutely no performance benefit whatsoever.

I don’t know about that. I have an older sport quad ATV. Loud AF with custom exhaust the last owner installed. I have full control of the fuel delivery with the carb mixture/jetting/etc, and there is no nothing other than preventing backfiring/popping that has any effect on the noise. I even tried repacking the “muffler” with new stuffing—- didn’t help.

Most newer bikes barring maybe Harleys come stock with exhausts that aren't monstrously loud because of regulations (though some have ways around that).

Problem is most peoples first course of action is to modify it to sound louder/"better". You'll often see this as the first complaint people have about bikes in motorcycle review videos.

My current bike is a newer CBR650R, mand it sounds relatively tame. But some people complain about that.

An older vehicle I may not fault as much, but you also have people revving to redline for no probable reason.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com