I have a 5000w emergency generator with a 10 hp Briggs & Stratton engine. This has to be one of the noisiest generators ever made, so need to find a way to add a decent muffler to it.
It is easy to add a car or motorcycle muffler to the engine, but my questions to the resident experts here are:

- Will any car muffler work on a single cylinder 4 stroke engine or is it better to use a motorcycle muffler?

- Are mufflers baffled differently according to engine type and cylinders?

- If I use a car muffler, does it make any difference if I use a muffler from a 4 cyl, 6 cyl or 8 cyl? Backpressure will of course not be an issue.

- Anybody have any experince as to which muffler will work the best?
It is not feasable to build a sound deadening enclosure in this case.

 

I have used small car mufflers on generators before , there are a lot of different mufflers types , one of the issues is getting a fitting to go from the head to pipe to muffle / or onto the existing pipe / what have you .
A cheap way to start to try the options would be go to a junk yard & see what you can find in a small unit , also making a support for the weight , so it not hanging on the engine .
You also may want to see if just putting a pipe straight up at least 3-4 feet , if not longer will do a lot .

 

I have also used a car muffler in the past, but with only moderate success, which is why I thought to check with the resident experts here.
Naturally, this kind of engine has a lot of inherant noise such as the fan and combustion noise, but I can live with that if I can quiet the exhaust racket a bit.
It is not a problem to make an adaptor from the muffler to the engine. Also will support the muffler so that there is zero weight on the engine.

 

i have not tried this myself but a option might be if you have a local farm or co-op store, or atwoods tractor supply. i have seen small mufflers for tractors and other engines on the shelf. check those out too. you can at least put you hands on them to see what may work or not.

 

I've gone the small muffler route and found that the exhaust was only a small part of the problem. My best solution (not possible for most I realise) is (using small 60lb. bales of hay) to build a two high wall of hay around the generator. Course you gotta make sure to leave sufficient space between the generator and hay.

Other sound barrier material could be used, just didn't find anything better for my needs prior to buying a Honda EU 3000 generator, now that's a quite generator.

 

moparguy is right. the noise you here from a briggs is mostly mechanical. try this, connect a piece of pipe to the exhaust using a vibration eliminator and streach it out 50ft or so. the noise won't change much. i spent a lot of time and money trying to quiet a dayton 3300 watt generator with an 8hp briggs, never made a big enough difference to even notice.

 

I would build a box and vent it ocordingly..

 

Easiest way to quiet a noisy generator is to...



shut it off.

chaikwa.

 

When I spent a year or so of my life living in a GP medium tent powered by a BIG diesel generator we found the best fix was deflecting the sound, not muffling it.

Two sided/90 degree angle plywood enclosure worked the best.