Honda CB1300 - Muffler replacement

We recently took delivery of a CB1300 long term test unit from Honda.

Our first addition to the machine was to replace the standard muffler with a Micron item. Not that the standard CB1300 muffler was particularly ugly. It is one of the nicer looking standard mufflers on a naked machine. Upon removal it also proved reasonably lightweight, although the move to the Micron did save nearly 2kg.

Looking down the muffler, and listening to it, pointed to the fact that is was quite heavily muffled. So we suspected that a good aftermarket item might free up a few ponies. And that it certainly did. At the upper revs we gained 7hp but their are appreciable gains from around 4,500rpm upwards which can be felt while riding.

While the silencer we used was a race item, it is still fairly quiet. The large capacity motor now makes all the right noises with a very deep note adding to the riding pleasure. And it is also helps that the cage drivers might also notice you a bit better.

These charts show horsepower and torque curves in relation to both revs and road speed. All dyno runs were undertaken in one gear below top with the best of three runs with the standard muffler, and three with the Micron muffler, selected for comparison here.

There is also a video clip showing the new muffler and what it sounds like. The video is in QuickTime format and is available in a short 810kb file, or a longer 3.36mb file. QuickTime can be downloaded by clicking here.

There is not an off the shelf Micron muffler available directly for the CB1300 from the UK manufacturer but Australian distributors, AP Imports, have made their own connecting pipe to fit a race muffler to the CB1300 exhaust system. As you can see this works quite well. However, the specialised Micron item direct from the factory is expected in the next Australian shipment.