From the dealer, my Husky was pretty
quiet, but it had the catalytic converter and the throttle stop then.
If you follow the power up directions your remove both of those. And
then the bike is really loud, with just the stock spark arrestor. But
the power up directions also tell you to take the spark arrestor out
and to put the baffle that comes in the kit in the pipe. This does
make the bike a bit quieter.
So then you have a problem, if you like
a quiet bike. First, with the stock kit baffle the bike still is pretty loud.
Second, if you use the baffle, you don't have a spark arrestor.
“danbartol” on cafehusky did a
bunch of research and testing on this. His comments are here:
Here are the stock Husky baffle
options:
On the far right is the spark arrestor
that comes with the bike. The middle baffle comes in the power up
kit, and does quiet the bike down, but has no spark arrestor. (The
baffle on the far left is a part you can buy from husky. It does
quiet the bike down very nicely, but is very restrictive and still
has no spark arrestor.)
I ended up welding a mesh screen on the
end of the middle baffle (like Dan did), the one that came in the power up kit, and
I've been running that. Here is a shot with the screen:
But lately I've been going to some forests and have been concerned that the cobby mesh wouldn't pass muster. And I was hopeful that a Q4 from FMF might be quieter. And I also really like reducing my bikes weight, and the Q4 was likely lighter than the stock muffler.
But lately I've been going to some forests and have been concerned that the cobby mesh wouldn't pass muster. And I was hopeful that a Q4 from FMF might be quieter. And I also really like reducing my bikes weight, and the Q4 was likely lighter than the stock muffler.
The Q4 looks nicely blocked up inside,
it's not a straight thru pipe:
Additionally, it comes with a spark
arrestor that bolts in the end:
Weight comparison:
Stock Husqvarna with baffle: 113 oz
(3204g) (baffle with tacked on screen weighs 5.2 oz or 156g)
FMF Q4: 91 oz (2576g) (Note FMF claims 6.1 pounds or 97.6 oz, maybe they count the hardware or something)
So the FMF is about 1.38 pounds
lighter! That's cool.
Sound test:
Here was my setup. I roughly followed
the AMA standard, by attempting to put the meter 20 inches at a 45
degree angle from the pipe. But my meter is a cheapo and this is not
the right environment to test. All I was hoping to do was compare
the two pipes. Note these tests are very rough, with me just trying
to get the rpm right and then taking a quick look at the dB meter.
Stock pipe:
Q4:
Results:
Stock with baffle and custom on spark
arrestor. Cat converter removed.
RPM A weight
C weight
2000 88 dB 95 dB
6000 98 dB 103 dB
8000 104 dB no test
FMF Q4 with spark arrestor
RPM A weight
C weight
2000 92 dB 98 dB
6000 101 dB 105 dB
8000 106 dB no test
By ear, the FMF Q4 sounded deeper, with
the volume approximately the same as the stock exhaust.
So essentially, my results were very
similar to danbartol's. The benefit of the FMF Q4 is lighter weight
and a certified spark arrestor. The Q4 is no quieter and maybe louder than the stock exhaust
with the kit baffle. (Although by Dan's testing it's quieter
than the stock exhaust fully uncorked with no spark arrestor or baffle. That makes sense to me.)
Final shot of the installed FMF Q4 on
my TE250. The Pirie CF Pipe guard took some modification to get to
fit. I also removed the FMF stickers as they don't pay me to run their pipe ;-)
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