National Cycle Peacemakers
National Cycle Peacemakers
CW EVALUATION
Covert or overt at the flip of a switch
IF IT HASN’T HIT YOUR TOWN JUST YET, don’t worry; it soon will. With ever-in-creasing frequency in communities all around the country, cops are on the prowl for bikes with loud pipes, Harley-Davidsons in particular, issuing either fix-it tickets or citations carrying sizable fines. This isn’t just a fleeting trend that will fade away; it’s here to stay, and it’s only going to get worse.
National Cycle’s answer to this predicament are its Peacemakers, slip-on mufflers that put a new spin on an old idea. Several exhaust systems over the years have employed some sort of in-line butterfly valve that could be closed for quiet running and opened for higher performance. Some actuated their valves through cables connected to a handlebar lever, others required the valves to be opened and closed via knobs on the mufflers.
The Peacemakers, however, are the first to operate the valves electrically. Pushing a small toggle switch on the handlebar one way or the other activates an electric motor housed in a chrome-plated cylinder that clamps to the right-front frame downtube. The motor pulls or pushes on cables leading to each muffler, opening or closing the butterflies“diverter valves,” as National Cycle calls
them-injust a second or two. When closed, the valves force exhaust gases to bypass the straight-through central core of the muffler and go instead around five sets of baffles that diffuse the sound. When open, the valves allow the gases to pass straight through the central core, which offers very little resistance to exhaust flow.
We bolted a set of Peacemakers onto a2001 H-D Deuce equipped with a Screamin’ Eagle 95-inch Big Bore kit and a set of relatively mild SE 203 cams. The job took about an hour and a half, with everything fitting into place neatly and without modification. The mufflers are nicely constructed of heavywalled steel plated in deep, lustrous chrome. Everything you need is in the box, including detailed instructions and the Allen wrenches necessary to complete the installation.
When we first fired up the Deuce with the Peacemakers in place, the diverters were closed, and we were stunned at how much they silenced the exhaust; we could barely tell that the engine was a V-Twin. But flipping the toggle the other way was answered with a nice, deepand rather loud-exhaust note befitting a big-inch Harley.
More surprises came on the CW dyno. With the valves closed, the 95-inch mo-
tor was so strangled that it could only manage a measly 57.9 horsepower and 65.4 ft.-lb. of torque-about 5 horses and 7 ft.-lb. below that of a bone-stock 88incher. But with the valves open, the Deuce pumped out 78.0 hp and 95.4 ft.lb., almost exactly what it made with the Screamin’ Eagle mufflers it had previously been running.
What this means is that you can close the Peacemakers’ valves and chuff through town so quietly that Barney Fife won’t even look your way. Yet once out in the wide-open spaces, you can flip the switch and take pleasure in the full V-Twin boom and performance you paid so much to enjoy. That literally sounds like a winwin to us. E3
DETAILS National Cycle, Inc. P.O. Box 158 Maywood, IL 60153 708/343-0400 www.nationalcycle.com Price.. .$599 A Stealthy when closed A Sound great when open A On-the-fly operation Wowns v Huge power loss when closed v Toggle switch is cheesy-looking v A tad pncey
