After Muffler

[Cloud Warrior]

Need some advice please. I am looking at shedding any unnecessary weight on my trike. I currently have an after muffler fitted to the exhaust. It was already on the trike when I bought it second hand. Pieter De Necker once told me in passing getting rid of it would give me another 2-3HP. Has anybody removed their's in the past? Was there a significant difference in performance? How much noisier is the aircraft without it?

Thanks

Sebastian

[Wargames]

I did remove mine. But the sound and performance difference is only in the books. I didn't notice anything, so I did put it back on. It was on recommendation that the hot gasses don't blow strait on the prop which is a pvc compound. With pprop, you wont have that issue. Try it out, you have nothing to lose.

[Cacofonix]

I attended a 1st line service and maintenance cource with Rotax in Feb 2010 and it was said that it just makes for a smoother engine...less vibrating

[Morph]

take it off, throw it away. it has only one purpose, a quieter engine for those noise abatement environments

[Loco]

I'm also torn between taking mine off...

Pros:
- Less noise
- No hot exhaust gasses directly on prop

Cons:
- Less HP (anybody managed to dyna theirs to prove/disprove this)
- More weight

I'm leaning towards the KISS principle & just chuck the thing + one of the most experienced aviators advised me to do so as well...

Eish!?

[nicow]

Mine is also off...

[ger koff]

Those mufflers usually have fibreglass packing which is the sound absorbing material. The oil residue in the exhaust gas contaminates the fibreglass pretty quickly and it loses its ability to muffle the noise, in which case it is only adding additional weight. The fibreglass packing needs to replaced quite often to be effective. This means that the muffler needs to be able to be opened and not of the rolled closed type.
As far as the reduced EGT is concerned, has anyone actually measured it before and after the muffler? I suspect not.
The EGT after may not be significantly different after the muffler, particularly if it's clogged up.