Repacking Mufflers: Anyone used steel wool from International Steel Wool?

I've had a love/hate relationship with the supertrapps on my '86 since day 1. I love the way they sound up high when the engine is under load. I hate them the rest of the time. I especially hate them when poking around town (yes, I know it's not what a VFR is meant to do).

When I was living in Paris, I saw a BUNCH of 4th and 5th gen VFRs in the city, and they all sounded pretty awesome, but were amazingly quiet (stock exhausts), until they were opened up. Opened up, they were heavenly sounding. Getting back to the states, and riding my VFR, and man is it loud... (audible from several blocks away sort of loud)

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Getting to the point, though: I've had one of my two mufflers apart. It's got plenty of packing material. It's just that it's solid (on the outside). It's not at all "fluffy", like fiberglass insulation. It's more like those whole-house water filters. Is that normal? (There's about 30K miles on the packing).

I've been thinking about just repaking them (since it's cheap), and this evening I found this:

http://shop.steelwooldirect.com/MUFF-PACK-Repacking-Kit-for-Mufflers-up-to-15-long-MP15.htm

Anyone used these in other mufflers? In supertrapps?

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And if the repack doesn't work, it's probably time to decide if I want to go with a whole new header-back setup, or if this plus my need to rebuild the front suspension (and the body work), means that it's time to pick up a much newer bike...

I just wish that they'd brought the 5th gen back into production instead of the 6th (I love the whine of the geared cams).

 

Kinda depends on which SuperTrapp can you have. If it has plates you can adjust the sound by adding or removing them.

That packing is stainless steel. A good thing. Regular steel wool pads and rolls are many times oiled to retard oxidation. Some harleydoods like this for their version of burnouts.

 

I've got a pretty standard supertrapp. 8 baffles on the end, a solid end-cap, and about 10-12" of perforated core surrounded by packing material. Adjusting the plates makes _some_ difference in sound, but not much, and 4 plates causes a big change in rideability (ie, it's crap).

So what _should_ packing look like? solid mass (ie, fused together), loose fibers?

 

Not sure about the steel wool but the name of the product in the link sounds like a lesbian biker gang!

 

The Supertrapp I have on my SR500 was from White Bros. No packing. Hard to tell what you really need. IMO buy the stainless mesh. Glass fibre should not fuse nor should asbestos if that is there. Hopefully not.. That stainless mesh looks like it would be easy to cut to make it fit your can. Once done, that steel is gonna last a very long time.

The entire SR stock exhaust was replaced early on.

I have talked to guys who are sort of confuse on the plates thing thinking that more plates equals more restriction of flow. No so..just the opposite..

 

I've since gotten confirmation (from videos of repacking, that mine are definitely in need of it (packing isn't supposed to be fused together the way mine is). But I also found a video of a 4-2-1 supertrapp on a 6th gen (rigged up underseat like the stock). It sounds nothing like my bike does. Deep v4 growl... Which has me thinking, does the 4-2-2 setup of the older gens (mine's a 2nd) sound different from the 4th+ that were all 4-2-1 (or 4-2-1-2 in the case of the 6th gen)?