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Iron Butt
Posts: 725
Reno County, KS | I've been playing with aftermarket horns for a few years now. I generally install aftermarket auxiliary horns on my vehicles to aid with moving cattle and other animals off the roads. I've found that a compressed can air horn works pretty well if you are willing to exit the safety of your vehicle. I don't recommend this with wild animals or freeway rats for that matter...
I recently went through my accumulated box-O'-horns and thinned out the herd that I had been accumulating. I connected each of these directly to the battery of my vehicle and tested them by hand two weeks ago. Here was my findings:
Stebel Nautilus: These are the V-R forum burner's favorites. Probably due to their small size. Unfortunately, they are also relatively weak. Not as loud as OEM pickup truck horns. Cheap build quality. Bad reliability. Like many horns, these need to be installed so that moisture will not get trapped in them. Furthermore, I found that they are very finicky when it comes to weather tolerance. A little rain and they end up sounding muffled. This unit failed within 1 year of installation on my vision. After doing a quick search online, I found that my experience was common. I also found that these are a clone of a model you can get much cheaper at Harbor Freight. I subsequently tossed the replacement I was going to install into the trash. ?I would not recommend wasting time with this unit. This would probably have something to do with why Stebel went out of business for awhile.
Fiamm Freeway Blaster: Very weak with very poor build quality. Thrown away after testing. ?Don't waste your time on this.
Fiamm large/medium twin air horns (aka Airraid): The worst output of the bunch. Literally sounded like a clown car. Thrown away directly after testing. Don't waste your time on this unless you are building a clown car.
Wolo Bad Boy: It's decent. Probably a best buy for the money off the shelves of local auto stores. I have one supplementing my truck horn currently. I'll probably replace this with (2) of Wolo's "Big Bad Max" horns for my cage. It does blow away the Stebel Nautilus but that's not really saying much. This unit is larger than the Stebel units but there is plenty of mounting room inside the fairings of the Vision.
Wolo Big Bad Max: I have not had a chance to test the Wolo Big Bad Max yet. It is advertised to be louder than their own Bad Boy horn and 3X louder than OEM horns. Of course, they don't say "who's" OEM horn. Technically, my pickup is already 3X louder than some OEM horns. I will likely replace the dead Nautilus horn on my motorcycle with this Wolo Bad Boy horn when I upgrade my truck. The Bad Boy is probably loud enough to hurt the rider's ears if you do not aim it properly, so the Big Bad Max will probably be too loud for open sounding.
The overall best bang for your buck would probably be to go to a salvage yard and take an OEM horn (or pair) off a relatively new pickup truck, buy a cheap relay and build a bracket. This will likely outlast the aftermarket brands by years. And you can get it wet without it killing it. It will certainly be much louder than the OEM Victory motorcycle horns. Motorcycle horns are inherently weak by design but at least the Vision does not have a "meep" sound like a 70's Honda.
I recommend running a tap to the battery and tapping the stock horn output with a relay coil. I also recommend leaving the factory horn in place. It's not much but it is proven reliable when the aftermarket units die.
Edited by bigwill5150 2012-08-31 9:02 PM
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Iron Butt
Posts: 725
Reno County, KS | Sorry for the miscellaneous typos. I would like to have edited the grammar and syntax a little better but the website editor loads "?"s all over the place. I'm just going to have to live with looking like an uneducated hick as I don't have the patience to delete any more surprises. Thanks for your understanding. |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 725
Reno County, KS | And it screws up the text breaks too. LOL |
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Auxiliary horns: What not to waste time with.
