Tailgunner Exhaust – Rotating Mufflers for Your Bagger
The Super Slash Cut Gunships ($795) are direct bolt-on mufflers for ’86-09 Harley-Davidson Touring models and feature a 4-inch diameter triple-chrome plated muffler body with either polished or stealth-black barrels and are available with or without full length baffles.
Installation took less than 15 minutes and was a simple matter of removing the existing mufflers, slipping on the Tailgunner mufflers, aligning the ends for symmetry, and then tightening the fasteners.
Here you can see the slash cut end of the muffler body and the exposed barrel. The barrel revolves around two bearings’ that allow the unit to spin as exhaust is expelled through the mufflers. While the bearings do have load, rpm, and heat limitations, Tailgunner designed the barrel assembly to fall well below the bearings operating ranges so they will spin for miles.
Here’s the back of the barrel assemblies. Not only are they unique but they also give the rear of the bike a very mechanical look.
Once the bike is fired up, the exhaust causes the barrels to spin. The higher the rpm and the more exhaust leaving the pipes, the faster the barrels will spin. To get both sides to spin at about the same speed, Tailgunner recommends running a set of true dual head pipes.
Now we know you were wondering how the barrel assembly looked inside and how expelled exhaust causes it to spin, so we took one apart so you wouldn’t have to. There are two turbines, one stationary and one rotating.
The two-turbine setup is designed to be a more efficient method of utilizing the exhaust to spin the barrel. The angled fins on the stationary turbine direct airflow towards the rotating turbine and therefore assist in spinning (but not over spinning) the barrel. While we didn’t dyno test the pipes, Charles commented that with the design of the 6-inch barrel assembly the turbines create back pressure and more power in the low end, and the spinning barrels create a high flow, freer flowing exhaust for more top end power.
Selecting an exhaust system for your bike can be quite a daunting task. First of all you need to decide if you are in search of power, sound, style, all three, or a combination of the three. Then you need to decide if you want a full system or just a set of mufflers. If you are a bagger owner looking for a set of mufflers that produce good sound, add some horsepower and torque, and will get your bike noticed while cruising down the highway or parked at the local bike night, then Tailgunner Exhaust might have what you are looking for. With mufflers like the B-52 Jet-Pipes, Torpedos, and Gunships, Tailgunner Exhaust has strived to create muffler systems that stand apart from the “average” exhaust and appeal to those who appreciate unique styling, while achieving a deep rumble and added power.
Recently, Tailgunner came out with a new muffler, the Super Slash Cut Gunships. Similar to the company’s flagship Gunships and Slash Cut Gunships, these new pipes feature a fully rotating barrel assembly that spins like a Gatling gun as it shoots out exhaust. As the name infers both the Super Slash Cut and the Slash Cut feature an angled cut at the end of the muffler body, the difference between the two is that the Super Slash Cut has a 6-inch long barrel assembly compared to the 4-inch barrel on the Slash Cut. Aesthetically, the added length helps draw more attention to the uniqueness of these mufflers, while from a power point of view, according to the company’s owner Charlie Giordano, the added length and the design of the barrel assembly have made the Super Slash Cut the company’s best power producing mufflers. While we didn’t have a chance to dyno the mufflers for this install, we do know from previous tests using Tailgunner’s other mufflers (B-52 Jet-Pipes, Mach II, and Gunships) in Vol.40 No.5 that all three did increase horsepower and torque.
