Learn Me: How do Mufflers Work?

This may be a strange request, but I am reconsidering the exhaust on my Eagle Talon. I would like to quiet down the exhaust while also moving to a different setup. I'm currently running a 3" straight pipe all the way to the stock location. The problem is the exhaust runs right where I would like to put an auxiliary 10 gallon fuel cell (I am currently running a 8 gallon primary).

One of the options I've found is the build/buy a "Boom pipe" (side exit) like used in NASCAR. However, it seems that would make the car louder rather than quieter. This makes me start to consider mufflers. How do they work? Can i implement quieting features into my "boom pipe"? Am I better off doing a muffler under the car 4-5 feet after the turbo and into the side exit.

Physics discussions and concepts are very appreciated.

I have just the video for this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWTARjxiqlo

You can install a muffler wherever there's room, what type you want to use depends on how much power you're willing to sacrifice for silencing.

My approach to quiet turbo cars is to make every straight section of the exhaust out of glasspack-style mufflers. They're not much more expensive than plain pipe unless you go for the stainless-body/stainless-mesh stuff.

Using many glasspack-style mufflers is a generally good strategy to quiet a car down without killing power. A good aftermarket cat will also kill some noise without meaningfully reducing power.

For mufflers when you don't have much space (or cash) I like to put these in series on straight sections: Speedway $10 muffler.
When you say "louder" do you mean to the driver or an external source? A side exit will most likely be louder from inside the car, as will any exhaust that doesn't fully clear the outside bodywork before exiting- the sound tends to "bounce" around under the car.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wrote: For mufflers when you don't have much space (or cash) I like to put these in series on straight sections: Speedway $10 muffler. When you say "louder" do you mean to the driver or an external source? A side exit will most likely be louder from inside the car, as will any exhaust that doesn't fully clear the outside bodywork before exiting- the sound tends to "bounce" around under the car.

Buying a few of those.

In reply to ¯_(ツ)_/¯:

Wheres the "dubious" smiley? Is there anything to those other than a straight pipe with a larger pipe tack welded to the outside?

The whole idea is to reduce sound waves. Flowmaster attempts this by getting the exhaust pulses to bump into each other, cancelling out the sound waves. There's a ton of info on the web, way more than you'll get here. I made my own exhaust tube from scratch, stealing Flowmaster's idea and the exhaust design from a typical Nascar stock car. I built a long flat tube with baffles to bounce the exhaust pulses back and forth into each other the whole length of the tube. The end result for me was a pretty quiet car with nearly a straight pipe for an exhaust.

In reply to MrJoshua:

It's a perforated straight pipe with another pipe welded to it- it cuts the noise about the same as a blown out glasspack. The exhaust on my V6 MR2 consisted of just one of these and a cat, it sounded glorious but cut out enough harshness that I stopped getting pulled over like I did with just the cat installed.

ncjay wrote: The whole idea is to reduce sound waves. Flowmaster attempts this by getting the exhaust pulses to bump into each other, cancelling out the sound waves. There's a ton of info on the web, way more than you'll get here. I made my own exhaust tube from scratch, stealing Flowmaster's idea and the exhaust design from a typical Nascar stock car. I built a long flat tube with baffles to bounce the exhaust pulses back and forth into each other the whole length of the tube. The end result for me was a pretty quiet car with nearly a straight pipe for an exhaust.

This is exactly what I was look for. do you have any pictures of the exhaust you built?

Horsepower and awesome go in one end. Through the process of strangulation and constipation, a lot of the awesome and horsepower are removed. That leaves you with less. Less awesome, less horsepower, less reason to stomp the loud pedal. Life as you know it is now infinitely more boring.

Don't do it.

Unless you own a rotary. I tried leaving all the HP and awesome. My ears rang for three days. They are just more awesome than the human body can stand.

Sorry.