Making your ATV run quieter is actually not all that hard to do. It all starts with the exhaust noise. There’s a few ways you can lower the exhaust noise of your quad that are pretty easy to do yourself.
Suppressing the sound your ATV makes is pretty popular among hunters, bird watchers, or anyone that wants to disturb the wildlife where they ride as little as possible. Others want a quieter machine to avoid bothering the neighbors or to comply with sound pollution regulations in their area. Whatever the case may be you have a few options available to quiet down the noise your ATV makes.
The most effective way to reduce the sound an ATV makes is to install an aftermarket ATV exhaust silencer on your machine. Other options include packing the muffler with sound dampening materials, installing a spark arrestor, or repairing any leaks in the exhaust or muffler system.
ATV Exhaust Silencer
This is the preferred method, and you’ll see why later on when I talk about the other options out there. Getting and installing an aftermarket ATV exhaust silencer is so simple and straight forward, and suppresses the exhaust noise better than anything else you could do.
There are plenty of ATV exhaust silencer kits out there to look through. I suggest you start with this Silent Rider ATV Silencer on Amazon. It’s a bit more pricey than some of the other options out there, but well worth it. The Silent Rider makes many versions of this ATV silencer so you should be able to find one that fits your quad. They make it a custom fit for your machine and even offer a one year warranty.
If you’re a bit strapped for cash you could try this Universal Fit Kolpin Stealth Exhaust 2.0 with Heat Shield. Sure it’s about half the price of the Silent Rider, but it’s also about half the star ratings too.
Don’t be put off by that though, most of the complaints are about fitting issues. If you’ll be able to weld this on, you shouldn’t have a problem. The makers of this ATV exhaust silencer, Kolpin, claim there will be no loss in performance with this silencer. That’s a plus in my book.
Pack The Muffler
If you’re trying to spend as little money as possible, you’re looking at the do it yourself approach. You could silence the existing exhaust by packing the muffler with sound dampening materials.
I don’t recommend doing this because you will be restricting airflow out of your engine and could cause overheating or other issues. Still, It’s a viable option if you need to quite the engine quickly and cheaply.
I would advise against using steel wool or anything of that sort because it will heat up pretty quickly in your muffler. Eventually blowing red hot pieces of steel all over the trail. Instead try using heat resistant insulation of some kind.
Sure, you could go into your attic and grab some fiberglass insulation to stuff in your muffler. That should work fine, but the best thing to use would be this Standard Muffler Packing Material, or something similar.
Install A Spark Arrestor
This is low down on the list because it’s not made to reduce the sound of your ATV exhaust. It’s intended to prevent hot debris from being blown out of your exhaust and catching the woods on fire. But, it does reduce the sound your engine makes a little bit.
If you’re going to use the ‘pack the muffler’ method, I highly recommend you make sure your ATV has a spark arrestor because the chances of high heat material getting shot out your exhaust is a lot higher.
It’s pretty easy to install a spark arrestor, and you can find them for around 20 bucks online. Here’s an HMF Spark Arrestor For Exhaust from Amazon to get your search started. As for the install, you simply take the end piece off your exhaust tip, put this on the end of the exhaust and reinstall the end piece.
Repair Exhaust And Muffler System
This may seem like a no brainer but a lot of people don’t realize their exhaust system may have a crack or rusted out areas. If you’re trying to quiet your ATV because you feel the exhaust is overly loud, it may be as simple as fixing the existing exhaust system on the machine.
Check over the exhaust and muffler systems for any small cracks or rusted out areas. Get a flashlight and take care to get a good look, even a small hairline fracture could be causing extra noise.
Repack Exhaust Silencer
This is another simple maintenance tip I’ve noticed not many people know about. If you already have an exhaust silencer installed on your quad, you may just need to repack the insulation.
Some ATVs come stock with a silencer on the exhaust from the factory that you will need to repack. You can use the same silencer packing material I recommended up above in the ‘pack the muffler’ section.
You should only need to do this every few years depending on how much you ride. It’s a simple process. Start by taking the exhaust silencer off the exhaust and disassemble until you have access to the material in the silencer.
Pull out all the old silencer packing material and clean the core. It doesn’t hurt to blow out the silencer with compressed air if you can. Install new packing material and reassembly the silencer. Easy as that, you’re done.
Sum It Up
There you have it, there’s a few different ways to make your ATV exhaust quieter. I would start with inspecting your exhaust and muffler for damage, rust, and cracks to make sure you don’t have a problem before going through the process of suppressing your ATV exhaust.
If everything looks good, I would repack the stock silencer if you have one, or go ahead and buy an aftermarket silencer for best results. Install a spark arrestor for a little help with the noise if you don’t already have one.
In a pinch you could always pack the muffler, but remember, that could lower your airflow which will reduce your engine power or cause problems.