Product Review Article ...
A liteweight and very effective stinger muffler...
This little Cooper muffler has been around for some time now. I had a chance to meet Cornell Chirila of Midwest Engines in Celina OH while attending the 2004 Gas Nationals. Cornell had these mufflers for sale and they caught my eye right away. They are extremely lightweight and small. They are of the clamp on type that simply fits over the stinger of your existing tuned pipe. I watched some of Cornell's and Bill Sidor's boats running with the Midwest aluminum pipes and these add-on stinger mufflers from Cooper and couldn't believe how quiet they actually were. It was pretty neat to get to actually see them perform before buying one. I had to try one, so I bought a complete tuned pipe system from Cornell and also one of these little Cooper mufflers. I installed it in my hydro and went racing! The performance was great! It was a little weird at first though, because this thing was so quiet that I had a hard time hearing my own boat with all the other boats running at the same time!
I really love this little muffler! You can see from the pic (muffler in my hand) how small it actually is. It is amazing how light it is also. The clamp that secures it on the stinger is almost as heavy as the muffler itself! This muffler is non serviceable though, which means you cannot open it up to add packing or clean it, but to be totally honest, there is absolutely no need to pack this muffler. It works great as is. I have been running mine for a year now, and no problems at all. It is 2.4" long from tip to tip, and 2" in diameter at the largest part. The mufflers are designed to fit Midwest/Hanson style aluminum pipe stingers, commonly about 0.535" O.D. They will also fit on steel pipes if the stinger O.D. is close enough. The muffling is accomplished by simply redirecting the sound wave inside a specially designed chamber. Engine performance seems to be unaffected, and running temperatures remain normal.
I can't actually remember how much I paid for this muffler, but if memory serves me well, it was approximately $25.00 USD. Pricing might have changed so check with Cornell at Midwest Engines.
We all know how critical it has become to keep our gas boats within reasonable noise limits in order to acquire and maintain racing ponds and lakes, so we must all do what we can to keep our boats as quiet as possible. This Cooper muffler is another great product that will make just about any boat quiet enough to meet sanctioned bodies noise limits; in fact they will be well below the limits in most cases. There are also some good muffled pipes available on the market today, but if you already have the tuned pipes and just want to quiet them down without sacrificing too much power, these stinger mufflers are worth it!
Happy Boating!
See also T-Mod Mufflers for custom size mufflers.
Contact Information:
Midwest Engines Cornell Chirila 5523 W. 92nd Pl. Overland Parks, KS Tel: 913-341-4977 Website: www.midwestengines.20megsfree.com Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.