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Will removing baffles hurt bike?

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4.9K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  Duc8tisti  
#1 ·
I have a S4R with Arrow full Ti exhaust. A member of the service department at my local Ducati dealership told me that taking out the baffles would hurt my engine because of the lack of back pressure. Is there any validity to this statement?
 
#3 ·
It doesn't "hurt" the engine. Removing the baffle may cause your A/F mixture to be a little more lean depending on the airbox/filter/ecu combination you are running.

You may want to run it a few days with the baffles in to get a baseline as well as to see if the bike is running normally or lean. If it is running fine, then remove the baffles for a few days to compare it to the baseline. My guess is if you are running a stock airbox and it is running fine, then you should be fine removing the baffle. If it is running lean stock, then removing the baffle may exacerbate the problem.
 
#4 ·
Update: First, thank you for your helpful comments. The S4R in question is stock. Never touched the ECU. I haven't touched the airbox. It even still has the smog canister on there -- LOL My bike has 3,000 miles with the Arrow pipes and runs great with baffles in. So if I take the baffles out, what signs should I look for that it is running lean?
 
#6 ·
I have an S2R 1000 with Full Arrow Ti and ran it with stock ECU & airbox.

I pulled the baffles and the bike ran like "poo" - very rough, surging, stalling, popping, etc. So I put the baffles back in. In short, you probably would hurt the engine if you put on 1000's of kilometers without the baffles because it is (obviously) way too lean - but why would you do that when it runs so poorly? But there is no harm in trying it out (if even to see how loud it is >:D), maybe the S4R will be different.

I have since upgraded to the DP ECU. Baffles or not, the bike now runs as it should have from the factory (if not for the emission laws)...