Do Mufflers “Make” Horsepower?
The answer, simply, is no. The most efficient mufflers can only employ the same scavenging effect as a header, to help slightly overcome the loss of efficiency introduced into the system as back pressure. “So,” you ask, “what the is the best flowing muffler I can buy?” According to the flowbench, two of the best flowing units you can buy are the Walker Dyno Max and the Cyclone Sonic. They even slightly out flow the straight through designs from HKS and GReddy BL series. Amongst the worst, are the Thrush Turbo and Flow Master mufflers. Resonators On your typical cat-back exhaust system, you’ll see a couple of bulges in the piping that are apparently mini-mufflers out to help the big muffler that hangs out back. These are called Helmholtz Resonators and are very similar to glasspacks. The main difference is that firstly, there is no sound-absorbing fiberglass or steel wool in a Resonator. And secondly, their main method of silencing is the reflective principle, not absorption. An easy wa
