Recently we had covered an article on the advantages of free flow exhausts and how they affect the performance of the bikes. It was a pretty detailed article which had got me in frenzy with people asking me about a lot of “cost-effective” free flow exhaust they saw in their local markets. Yes, free flow exhausts do cost quite some money which is actually the reason why not everyone prefers going for them. But in lieu of the growing market, many people have got some cheap exhausts which you can fit on the bike for a far less cost.Now the reason for this is because the sellers feel that the exhaust has nothing else but only noise to it. The technical and performance advantages are unknown to them because of which the side-effects are more harmful to the bike rather than providing an advantage. This is why going for cheap road side free flow exhaust will definitely give you the noise that you require, but then the performance and efficiency of the bike is surely going down the drain.
There are many free flow exhausts available in the market that will cost you a mere 500-600/- bucks. They might even look cool on your bike, agreed. But then these exhausts give you the decibels you are looking for, but the back force that the free flow exhausts causes, is not created in the engine. This results in a drop in the overall performance of the motorcycle. Since there is no more pressure created in the entire flow of the combustion cycle, the air sucking action due to the back pressure and the fuel intake/injection is very erratic resulting in incomplete combustion and hence there is a lot of smoke.
This causes a fall in the bike’s power production capability and also reduction in the efficiency of the bike by quite a lot. The noise output will make you feel that the bike is running faster than before, but it is just make believe and psychological, in reality the bike is going much slower than it is capable of.
Also with this there will be an increase in your fuel bills and polluting nature of the bike which is again not good as the catalytic converter might also have to go to accommodate the free flow nature of the cheap exhaust.
One thing which even though might seem a bit minor but holds quite some importance in the handling of the bike is the weight balance and distribution. Practically speaking a free flow exhaust is most of the times required to be custom made according to the requirements. But with the cheap ones, they are simply fitted on and this causes an imbalance of weight distribution. The best way to judge this is when you ride the bike, the bike will feel like pulling towards one direction or else tilting of the bike will make you feel a difference here.
So make sure to not take a chance with any cheap free flow exhausts off the road and always make sure to get a certified and compatible free flow exhaust only so that you get the true benefits of the same.
By: Pratik Patole
