making a muffler?

[Mr Awsome]

has any one on here ever made a muffler?
im thinking of making one just out of curiosity.

[Rice86]

nope but go for it

thread is pretty pointless unless you have researched on how to make mufflers and failed to find any information

[evil86]

it would be interesting. post pics if you decide to make one

[Sam-Q]

I started to, I had this design:

http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/dcimages/2/5/2/34252.jpg


concept was it quad-ruples the length of time the gases get to be muffled. I can't find the pic but I made most of the exhaust gas dividers (reverse collectors) and the 4 tubes where finished.

I stopped because I have an even better idea but it needs some time on a mill making a stamping mould to make the internal air dividers.

[redsprinter]

sam , what sort of improvement would this design benefit over other mufflers? just curious .

[marvis]

Exactly what I was thinking.

[Frak]

When I had my RX3 I ended up making all the mufflers. At first I'd go to exhaust shops that would tell me how they did 'magical' mufflers that worked on rotaries(remember this is back in the late 80's) they would charge me shit loads, the mufflers sometimes would last a week maybe 2, I was hard pressed to get a few months out of an exhaust shop muffler.

I'd go back and then of course there was no warranty cos it was fitted to a rotary!! They wouldn't say that at the time.

So I decided to make my own, nothing too scientific(I was young and dumb!), at the time I was running a twin 2 inch system back to a merge then single 2.5 inch.

I made the mufflers up out of mild steel which was quite thick(can't remember exactly, it was a long time ago and I'm old!) I got hold of some perforated stainless tube, for the first few mufflers I wondered what I would run for packing(all these muffers were straight thru absorption type). Once finished they were quite neat and looked quite good.

So I went to a large machining place near where I lived and asked if they turned stainless steel, the guy said "yep" I asked if he would keep me a bag of stainless turnings, telling him what I was going to do, he said "no problems". Any way a week goes by, he calls me and tells me he has a huge bag of stainless turnings. I gave him a 6 pack and both parties were happy!

I get the bag, had already made the canisters and then pack the mufflers, you have no idea how much stainless turnings you need until you do one. Anyway these mufflers were for each single pipe of the twin system, weld em up(they weighed alittle more than I expected) put them on and that was the last time I had to replace those two.

Eventually the rear muffler died so I decided on making up a rear larger canister muffler. This time I used a ceramic high temperature wool, the muffler was lighter.

Anyway these mufflers lasted for years and in the grand scheme of things cost me bugger all. Eventually when I rebuilt the car I removed the exhaust system, a friend of mine who had an RX3 took the exhaust, years later I was talking to him and asked how the exhaust had gone, he said "gone!! I'm still using it, it's the best exhaust I've ever had!"

It was quite easy to make the casings, using a sheet metal roller to roll the outer canisters, I plasma cut the ends(which were quite thick to stop them blowing out with rotary backfires :) )and then the whole lot was just oxy/acetylene welded.

[Sam-Q]

ah do you know where I can get this ceramic wool?

redsprinter: it works by increasing the effective length of the muffler. Because it has four paths instead of one the exhaust pulses should have a much larger surface area to be quietened down. It would still have almost zero back-pressure like a normal straight through. Well thats the theory anyway.

[Skylar]

http://www.summitracing.com/search/Department/Exhaust/Part-Type/Muffler-Repack-Kits/?Ns=Rank|Asc

Ready made cores: <- sorta not cost effective once you start buying this stuff.
http://www.summitracing.com/search/Department/Exhaust/Part-Type/Muffler-Replacement-Cores/?Ns=Rank|Asc

[Drift_Dan]

I had a friend who did this, much the same as Frak except to pack them he just cut open some old mufflers and took the packing out of them for it. It worked fine and lasted for ages.