Cycle World Evaluation
CYCLE WORLD EVALUATION
Fl Mufflers
What you see is what you get.
That old saw is certainly true of F1 Mufflers. What you see is a slip-on, aluminum-bodied replacement muffler that looks as though it came off of a racebike. What you get are racebike looks.
What you don’t get is racebike performance or racebike noise. But admirably enough, F1 doesn’t claim that with the use of its mufflers you’ll beat Freddie Spencer to the checkered flag or turn a faster quarter-mile time than Pee Wee Gleason. F1 does tell you, however, that its mufflers are unlikely to attract any added attention from the local police because of high sound levels.
To verify FI’s claims, we rounded up a set of its silencers and a Honda VF1000F Interceptor, then headed to the dragstrip to determine if the mufflers truly offered any performance gain or, more important, performance loss, an occurrence more common than you might think with replacement exhaust components. We made several passes with the stock mufflers on the Interceptor to establish a baseline, and then attempted to install the FI units. The stock mufflers slipped off in a few minutes, but the gasket that fits between the left-side muffler and pipe absolutely refused to come out of the muffler. Because that gasket was required to complete the installation of the FI mufflers, we had to abort our testing for the day.
We had spare gaskets the next time we went to the track. And with the stock mufflers in place, the Interceptor covered the quarter in 11.15 seconds at 119.87 mph. That established, we then installed the FI mufflers. This time there were no gasket hassles, so the entire mufflerswitch took less than ten minutes. (Ken Boyko of FI reports that sometimes it’s impossible to coax a gasket out of a stock muffler without damaging the gasket, so he recommends having new gaskets on hand to keep a simple job simple.) The best run with the FI pipes was 11.27 seconds at 119.24 mph. Such a slight difference in quartermile times (0.12-second) is so small that it could be due to human error, and is impossible to feel while riding the bike. So figure that the performance with FI mufflers will be essentially equal to stock and not exactly the hot tip for ultimate dragstrip use.
They’re not much louder than stock, either. A ride-by sound check from 50 feet produced 83 dB with the stock mufflers, and the FIs made slightly more than 84 dB.
One decibel isn’t much difference in sound level, although the tone with the FI mufflers was a bit sharper than stock, and a little less deep. And because the FI mufflers depend on replaceable fiberglass packing for noise reduction, they become slightly louder with use. The change in noise level produced by 1000 miles was slight—which was fortunate, because the repacking procedure requires drilling out the pop rivets that hold the aluminum can to the pipe, and then re-riveting the can back into place.
The FI pipes are lighter than stock; installing them on the Honda shaved six pounds from the bike’s weight. While less weight is desirable, this isn’t a change you’ll ever notice.
That seems to be the case of most functional aspects of FI mufflers: They’re not noticeably different than stock. Instead, they simply offer that aluminum-can silencer look that is prevalent on modern racing motorcycles, and they do it while costing considerably less than stock mufflers or entire aftermarket exhaust systems. The FI mufflers are $129 for the pair, compared to $174.78 for original-equipment Honda mufflers.
So in the end, FI mufflers are for the person who wants that certain racebike style, or for someone replacing damaged or rusted stock mufflers with something both less expensive and flashy. El
