I'll tell you up front - I know little or nothing about small gas engines!

I have an 8 HP B&S engine on my generator and would like to install a quieter muffler - is that possible? Will it affect performance?

Thanks!

plan A cram the original mufler with steel wool (not recomended)
Plan B :D depends what kind of muffler it requires. if its just a regular muffler you could just go to a local hardware and buy a quieter muffler. if its some custom job you could look it up online. If you got the right muffler it wouldent affect the power enough to notice yea it might bring it down a litle but nothing serious.

I just worked on a couple Western Salt Spreaders with 8hp Briggs on them. They had a long round muffler installed. I attached a 90* extension that Western sells to direct the exhaust out the bottom of the housing. I was suprised at how much it lowered the volume of the exhaust. ;)

don't know about you all but straight pipes for me. loud and proud.

oh and when your standing around the muffler it will be louder, walk around to behind the engine where the muffler's pointing the other way and its quieter. now you could do what iron head said but that would constrict the flow too much or buy a quiet muffler. but it will decrease the performance some not much. i straight pipe my mowers and all and they pick up a little better performance and they cool better. for one thing i hate those can mufflers that are attached to the engine, the extended ones are pretty good. buy an extended quiet one. nothin like a old 1982 murray rider with a 8hp briggs with a straight pipe, they sound good, 12hp briggs especially sound good. but go to your local small engine shop and they can hook you up with a quiet muffler. oh and another tip, when in enclosed areas the engine sounds louder. now a extended quiet muffler with a spark arrestor can be very quiet.

ime with ya bug man straight is the way to go. ime gona loos ma hearing anyways. lol loud n proud i like that. i just built a 5 hp brigs and its got a straight. its made so it has a litle flame in it too looks cool not a performance engin just a show engin a trophy if you will. fist engin built. ive goten at least a 5 inch flame out of it. loud... so loud.

straight pipe is hard on exaust valve and ears,, engine will make more power with some back pressure , super lo-tone part number 494222 is pretty good but# 498984s (remote mount) is the one i would use if i wanted to make friends in the campground , eight ponies are hard to keep quiet

18hp is as well. straight piped it and well little more go. all those years and no valve problems out of both sides. but quiet is good when your outside and you don't like noise. oh and yeah my latest freebie, just got done with working on the trans but an old noma with a 12hp briggs I/C, for its age it has compression like new and burns little to no oil, of course, no dipstick and i end up accidentally over filling it, but oil stays clear and had a new 39 inch deck and components, got it free, put 40 bucks for new belts and clean the carb out, new autolite plug and some head cleaning and a pipe/ battery as well and a solenoid i got from a parting out mower, and talking flames :cool: starts easy when ever the battery doesn't die from the winter cold now. did mention free, I/C man. oh and a 1982 murray 8 rider with a old 8hp briggs and well no deck but i use it to ride the neices on and pull various things, pops them wheelies :p not intentionally all the time, the trans is old and well those old ones had no lag. so when the clutch was lifted they went. that was free and along with a free one for parts. oh and my friend has what he built by hand, old man now built a monster, got a new fully ready 8hp briggs horizontal. and slapped that on a go-cart with a racing straight pipe he made and a belt driven racing clutch, talking loud and so much get up, 100 yards and its still accelerating, he also bought a 14hp briggs horizontal powered sears garden tractor for 150$ now engine is un-rebuilt and its over 20 years old, deck is like new and well straight piped that beast and its so heavy but the power of it, lifts the heavy front end. sounds good as well. runs nice.

sounds like you got it made bugman. see i wish i could just go out n buy/ recive engins n fix em up. but i got 2 probs there. 1 my mom she hates junk cause everything is junk in her eyes. is she dosent like it sheel throw it away. than all hell breaks loos. that prob 1 prob 2 is my working space is currently being crapped up by my brother who just recently took his whole dash apart in his car and storrs all the parts on the floor in my garage... if i tuch them all hell breaks loos cause my mom takes his side. and while i think about it prob 3 is its cold outside like 2 degrees and its realy hard to work on engins in that weather. so i am hoping that come spring n summer things will change. :D lets hope

yeah just the other day the murray got a work out. pulled about two tons of rock and well when all done that day still have more and got done and this slowpoke was going down the road and i was going down my driveway, i popped it into third and it popped a wheelie about 3 or 4 feet high. just love it. both are old and both have relatively new like compression. oh yeah four pushers, three riders, an two weeders. one i got up on that deal. 25cc craftsman, man wanted get this five bucks, gave him four, got it home fixed the simple rope rewind problem and well added gas and fourth pull and she was going. have that as a spare. my pride and joy pusher i bought, 6.0 briggs craftsman 2in1 22 incher. 300 bucks and first start pulls and i have had it a couple years now and well been through hell and mowing my yard sometimes twice a week on the high thick grass, 3 hours at a time non stop.