What are the most common muffler technologies on the market, and how do they work?
The most common method is to chamber the exhaust gases. This is used by most of the OEM as it is simple and inexpensive. The sound waves hit a partition, or baffle, and bounce back into themselves or another wall to kill the sound. Effective, but this method also creates backpressure and reduces power. This is almost a parasitical power loss and is incorporated by numerous aftermarket muffler builders. It doesn’t take a degree in physics to understand that while the sound wave is being interrupted, so is the pressure or power wave. Thus a power loss will incur. It also makes a very hot muffler and often is the reason for resonance inside the cockpit.
