Now that I've had an opportunity to ride the bike on decent length trail rides ( 30 miles ) with both silencers , my original feeling stands . The engine is slightly stronger in the mid rpm range with the shorty . It's is slightly louder , but minimally . The difference in sound is very small . Does it make more or less top end power ? Who knows ? The mid range is where I spend the vast majority of my riding time , and here , the shorty feels better to me . The great part is that I have 3 different silencers on the shelf . The shorty , a Power Core and a Turbine Core . So , in minutes , I can change at any time if I decide to . I am not trying to convince myself or justify a performance improvement in the shorty simply because I made it and it HAS to be better . Personally , I couldn't care less which one is on the bike . Performance is all that matters and at this stage of the tuning , under the trail conditions that I have ridden , the shorty works better . Not sure why . Perhaps it's just the interelationship of some of the key components ( air filter , Rad valve , Gnarly pipe , jetting , riding style etc ) that favors one silencer over the other . But , no matter how you slice it , like it or lump it , there is a performance difference between the 3 silencers.
I am certainly not suggesting that everyone go out and chop 4" off their Power Core expecting miracles . Until I get develop a better understanding as to why the shorty seems to work ( on my bike ) , it is nothing more than an oddity . But , an interesting one ( to me at least ) . Everyone has an opinion and I respect that , but , unless it's based upon personal hands on exhaust system development experience , saying it doesn't work , means next to nothing . How would anyone know , unless they've actually done it ? So , here's an opportunity for those with hands on knowledge , to step up and provide real data to explain why things should and shouldn't work . This way we all can learn so our bikes get better and that's what this is really all about . Right