Have 4 Stroke Exhaust Resonance Chambers Jumped the Shark?

Falcon wrote:

Let's face it, they set the prices higher on 4-stroke exhausts from the beginning because they could get away with it. They could and did.

Lightning78 wrote:

Agreed....when you look at the economies of scale on a CRF250 full system being 2 complete exhaust systems but is barely more expensive than a comparable...

Agreed....when you look at the economies of scale on a CRF250 full system being 2 complete exhaust systems but is barely more expensive than a comparable single system and kb228 ..... high cost? I seriously doubt companies like PC, Yosh, FMF etc pay that much for their raw materials like titanium. They buy it in bulk, ready to cut and roll into a muffler canister and I'll bet they buy all of their time tubing in the same manner in like 20' sticks/tubes for the header pipes. I've taken that into account when I said the unit cost for a full system is probably around $100. This may be a "captain obvious" statement but they're not buying individual cut to length turbine and flat stock of titanium individually per exhaust system, then it would cost a lot more but anyone with 1% of business sense would know better to buy so inefficiently.

Another great example was a few years back when Pulpmx had "Lil D" on the show and a couple people grilled the eff outta him about their new 2 stroke silencers the 2.1's which overnight became the size of a 4 stroke muffler which skyrocketed the msrp of a 2 strokes silencer. He kept dodging the question about what made these silencers better bec there wasnt one benefit other than streamlining mfg costs but FMF pushed them like there was some kind of new advancement and in reality the doubled the price of a standard 2 stroke silencer, gave no benefit and cut mfg costs....double dipping strategically if you will. Cant hate on them for that but the fact is/was that they weren't any better.

Lightning78 wrote:

I don't believe that the resonance chambers were solely based on sound at least not from a marketing stand point. I seem to recall the chambers...

I don't believe that the resonance chambers were solely based on sound at least not from a marketing stand point. I seem to recall the chambers not costing power at the expense of sound and in an area where HP is king aka the 250 class, the chambers are still being used and if they were detrimental to HP, I'm 100% sure the top level teams would not be running them if they could get more hp w/o them.

Lightning78 wrote:

I don't believe that the resonance chambers were solely based on sound at least not from a marketing stand point. I seem to recall the chambers...

I don't believe that the resonance chambers were solely based on sound at least not from a marketing stand point. I seem to recall the chambers not costing power at the expense of sound and in an area where HP is king aka the 250 class, the chambers are still being used and if they were detrimental to HP, I'm 100% sure the top level teams would not be running them if they could get more hp w/o them.

Jeremy Macbeth wrote:

The fact that Keefer said the GasGas 250 motor felt stronger tells you everything you need to know about "bike tests."

Falcon wrote:

Let's face it, they set the prices higher on 4-stroke exhausts from the beginning because they could get away with it. They could and did.

Lightning78 wrote:

Agreed....when you look at the economies of scale on a CRF250 full system being 2 complete exhaust systems but is barely more expensive than a comparable...

Agreed....when you look at the economies of scale on a CRF250 full system being 2 complete exhaust systems but is barely more expensive than a comparable single system and kb228 ..... high cost? I seriously doubt companies like PC, Yosh, FMF etc pay that much for their raw materials like titanium. They buy it in bulk, ready to cut and roll into a muffler canister and I'll bet they buy all of their time tubing in the same manner in like 20' sticks/tubes for the header pipes. I've taken that into account when I said the unit cost for a full system is probably around $100. This may be a "captain obvious" statement but they're not buying individual cut to length turbine and flat stock of titanium individually per exhaust system, then it would cost a lot more but anyone with 1% of business sense would know better to buy so inefficiently.

Another great example was a few years back when Pulpmx had "Lil D" on the show and a couple people grilled the eff outta him about their new 2 stroke silencers the 2.1's which overnight became the size of a 4 stroke muffler which skyrocketed the msrp of a 2 strokes silencer. He kept dodging the question about what made these silencers better bec there wasnt one benefit other than streamlining mfg costs but FMF pushed them like there was some kind of new advancement and in reality the doubled the price of a standard 2 stroke silencer, gave no benefit and cut mfg costs....double dipping strategically if you will. Cant hate on them for that but the fact is/was that they weren't any better.

GrapeApe wrote:

So this thread has nothing to do with resonance chambers, you're just upset than 4 stroke exhausts cost a lot of money even though you haven't...

So this thread has nothing to do with resonance chambers, you're just upset than 4 stroke exhausts cost a lot of money even though you haven't ridden a 4 stroke since 2009. Got it.

Jeremy Macbeth wrote:

The fact that Keefer said the GasGas 250 motor felt stronger tells you everything you need to know about "bike tests."

Lastander wrote:

How about paying 1300$ for a stainless Yosh that weighs more than stock, cracks everywhere after about 30-40 hours, sounds 2-3db louder and basically gives no...

How about paying 1300$ for a stainless Yosh that weighs more than stock, cracks everywhere after about 30-40 hours, sounds 2-3db louder and basically gives no added performance? Probably sounds great to me because i have 4 of them laying around now

Lightning78 wrote:

Let's discuss..... I mean with the recent GasGas reviews, Keefer saying he felt the GasGas 250f engine was stronger than the KTM & Husky and attributing...

Let's discuss.....

I mean with the recent GasGas reviews, Keefer saying he felt the GasGas 250f engine was stronger than the KTM & Husky and attributing the change to the only difference between the bikes engine-wise being the lack of a Resonance chamber in the header pipe. He had similar thoughts regarding the GasGas 450 as well.

I've given up on 4 strokes all together as of 2009 I havent paid much attention to how expensive 4 stroke things are but looking at that GasGas build on the home page got me wondering why 4 stroke full systems average $1,000 in cost. Basic mainstream R&D on 4 strokes has nearly 20 years behind it now exhaust-wise I mean. The only real innovation out of the norm has been the resonance chamber and now it doesnt seem like its necessary as once thought. I will wait for someone to put a KTM exhaust on GasGas or Vice-versa to make a final thought but I'm curious and wanted to create a topic to discuss...

Lastander wrote:

How about paying 1300$ for a stainless Yosh that weighs more than stock, cracks everywhere after about 30-40 hours, sounds 2-3db louder and basically gives no...

How about paying 1300$ for a stainless Yosh that weighs more than stock, cracks everywhere after about 30-40 hours, sounds 2-3db louder and basically gives no added performance? Probably sounds great to me because i have 4 of them laying around now

nickm wrote:

Life lesson: the price of an item has very little to do with raw material costs. It is priced to what buyers think its worth and...

Life lesson: the price of an item has very little to do with raw material costs. It is priced to what buyers think its worth and what they will pay. Why would anyone sell something for $200 bucks when they can sell it all day for a grand?

Patrick Potato wrote:

You left out R&D and testing costs, tooling and fixturing costs, labor costs, machinery costs, property costs, marketing costs, general overhead, oh and a little bit...

You left out R&D and testing costs, tooling and fixturing costs, labor costs, machinery costs, property costs, marketing costs, general overhead, oh and a little bit of profit for the manufacturers, distributors and dealers. Honestly it really irritates me when people with little to no experience about how products are developed and made chime in with the halfbaked argument that the material cost is all that companies should charge for their products. Rant over, for now.

TeamGreen wrote:

There’s a forum member named “Tuned Length” that should have the real answers...