Best Exhaust Note?

Most animal sounding: Porsche 964 with drilled airbox/G-pipe :-o

Any Rover V8 powered TVRs do the trick as well!

Worst sounding: my Honda Civic a couple of weeks when the back box blew! Made even worse due to the fact that I had to shell out £120 to get it fixed!

My old Vauxhall Chevette HS 2.3 with twin 48 Dellorto carbs. Incredibly noisy and the sound changed its character completely as the revs climbed. Which it did often. At thirteen miles per gallon.
It was great fun in the Dartford tunnel one bank holiday weekend in '87 on the way back from the European rallycross at Lydden. Crackling and banging on the over-run then howling on full throttle. My passenger said it was the best road-car sound ever, and he has owned some firey cars including a Renault 5 Turbo One (the mid-engined beasty).

Tony

For me personally, it was my Honda Integra Type-R, 2nd and 3rd gear through the underpass in Dundee (under the bottom of the Hilltown/Wellgate shopping centre) with the windows down....VTEC screaming up to 9,000 rpm each time!
Other than that, probably the TVR Chimera 4.5 that I test drove.....

For cars that I haven't been in - McLaren F1, Lambo Diablo, Veron - not necessarily in that order...

Cheers,
Ali

My custom built 1380cc Mini Cooper S injection gives a fairly spine-tingling noise at about 6600rpm... especially with the windows open. and through a tunnel!


Cars that I have neither driven nor been in - Aston Martin V8 Vantage - like a machine gun
Aston Martin DBR1 - Perfect
Ferrari 250GTO - God clearing his throat

Cars I've passengered in -
Macca f1 - Sounds evil
Porsche 956 - Brutally terrifying
Lambo Countach LP500S - amusingly like a jet engine
Caterham 7 1700 Supersprint - sounds a lot like my mini actually! Hard edged vicious 4pot snarl
TVR Griffith 500 - meaty & sinister

Cars I've driven -
Sunbeam Lotus - gruff & purposeful
Accord Type R -zingy & ballistic, but calm at low revs
Eagle E-type 4.2 S1 roadster - just bolshy enough, but subtle
Skoda Octavia VRS - pleasingly fruity, muted roar.

The two faves of my own cars past/present:

Triumph Stag: gentlemanly 'waffle' at rest, nice V8 rumble under power. Like a less butch TVR.

Caterham Roadpsort: induction 'suck', snarling exhaust blare, spitting gravel, wind rush, drivetrain lash, screaming passenger. Overrun pops and bangs. When you stop after a real blat it is suddenly, glaringly, silent apart from the ticking cooling exhaust. Fabulous.

Bruce

Anything with a Merlin V12 in it.

Chaps

You are all wrong.

The best sounding exhaust is my 1959 BSA 350cc single. It goes a slow thump thump thump. In fact it goes so slow, you think it should have stopped last week.

Regards

Mick

quote:

Originally posted by Tarquin Maynard-Portly:
Morris Minor

Darn, someone beat me to it.

There seems to be a propensity of late, for young men to fit noisy penis extensions to the rear of something like a 1 litre Peugeot 106 (as that's all they can afford to insure).

The resultant racket gets right up my pipe, if you'll excuse the pun.

Victor Meldrew.

A 1953 Formula One BRM 1.5 litre V-16 Supercharged racing car. The best sounding car from any era!

Beano

quote:

A 1953 Formula One BRM 1.5 litre V-16 Supercharged racing car. The best sounding car from any era!

Beano

..... and I was at Goodwood this year to hear one do two runs. Fan-bloody-tastic.

Tony

Most V8s do it for me.Although the 1.5 V16 BRM is pretty special.

H

quote:

Originally posted by i am simon 2:

My vote is for the Ferarri 355 - just before it redlines in second gear - preferably going through a tunnel.

Simon

I second that. It sounds like a high revving super bike. The 360's exhaust note is a step down IMHO.

I have always liked the particular sound of a long stroke straight six under load.

One example of this type of engine was the famous petrol fuelled three litre engine originally fitted in various Austin lorries, and I knew one very lovely example in an Ex RAF fire tender from 1942. This amazing vehical continued after the war in the service of the Worcester Fire Brgade, and eventually was owned by a good friend of mine. It was advisable to keep the 500 gallon tank full of water or else the suspension ceased to work. It was vertually solid! Flat out it was good for 75 mph, and that takes some imagining, given the rather useless brakes at that speed! they simply faded away before you stopped. I was in it one day, and the effect was demonstrated to me, in safe circumstances! Otherwise the brakes were rather fierce.

But the nicest sounding three litre Austin I ever knew was fitted to a model 780 Masey Harris combine harvester from about 1950. It ran on TVO, which is the petrol equivalent of red diesel for petrol, but actually was partly parafin. This got a very distnictive smell, somewhat sweet.

The actual sound of this engine was somewhat altered by the fact that the exhaust was made out of two and a half inch galvanised water pipe, entirely without silencer! The pipe faced straight back from the combine and at half a mile it sounded just like an old airoplane when it moving directly away from me! Marvelous, as our neigbour used this veteran bit of agricultural history on the next farm to us. When he lowered the cutting table and the threshing drum took up the load, the engine simply roared. I have never heard a more fantastic engine note on anything! On tick-over it never quiet sounded even, but once a few revs were stacked on it was glorious! hard to imagine that this was the same engine that almost silenently power the old Austin Pricess cars.

Without doubt my favourite post war car was the Alvis Three Litre made till 1967, which had a more or less square (equal bore diameter and stroke length) straight six, and this engine's note gives the impression of quietly have a lot of spare power on tap if required without ever shouting, even when the power is tapped! The problem is that the fuel economy then plummets. Otherwise 22 to 25 mpg is a reasonable expectation.

Of four cylinder engines there is nothing quite like the old Bentley Three litre (1920-30), which has an amazing thump to the note. Every power stoke is articulated in best rhythmic fashion, almost like a four cylinder version of Mick's BSA actually. I restored a 1940 Royal Enfield 350 cc Model CO, which was the WD version of the Model G sold in the civilian market. That that would be quite easily persuaded to tick over smoothly at about five power stroke per second, and it did not shake doing it, but sometimes opening the throttle got the opposite to the expected result. The engine simply stopped! So Mick, I know of what you speak!

Fredrik

I like the sound of this TVR Griffith
which I assume is that Rover V8 engine mentioned above.
I was just listening to "Happy Jack" from the Who and thinking that maybe I like it for the same reason. Somehow.

The sound of the 1953 BRM is available over here.

This site has a nice collection.

This gives me goosebumps...

Ferrari F355

quote:

Originally posted by Tony Lockhart:

quote:

A 1953 Formula One BRM 1.5 litre V-16 Supercharged racing car. The best sounding car from any era!

Beano

..... and I was at Goodwood this year to hear one do two runs. Fan-bloody-tastic.

Tony

Tony,

Did you get any good pictures worthy of posting on here.

Beano

IMO Ferrari 250 GTO racing at silverstone at last years historic meet -

I have also had a free CD of engines from Mr Mason with his book 10/10's - can't say I have ever put it on the system though! - might be one for a rainny day

Some interesting views on this one. I imagine a 250 GTO sounds pretty good, but I have not heard one.

In terms of induction roar, thats a whole other thread. I suppose though that only when travling in a car does one hear the induction.

A mate of mine had a highly tnued Suburu 22b with about 550 bhp, and on full boost, all you could hear inside the car was the turbine like rush of air into the air filter - however on the outside of the car all you could hear was the rumbling off beat thrub of the boxer (with the odd pop and crackle).

My ugly peugeot 309 which I had when Iwas 19, once started making a much tastier noise, and when I looked inside the bonet, the airbox had come of the top of the carb!

Tony and Beano

I think I saw one of the BRMs you talk of at Shelsy Walsh a couple of years ago, IIRC it was one of the stars of the show.

I will dig ouy my photos and post one or two, when I get home this evening.

Kind regards

Simon

In no particular order:

Honda Integra Type R - 9000 rpm is/was so addictive, every journey had to go there several times, a must for tunnels and underpasses.

1293 Mini - RC40 on LCB with Howley inlet and KN will live in my ears forever.

D Type Jag - flattened the grass and made me laugh.

GT6 - on TriumphTune twin pipes, could be heard coming from a substantial distance, hence I was discouraged from buying due to returning home late at night on a regular basis.

Jono

quote:

1293 Mini - RC40 on LCB with Howley inlet and KN will live in my ears forever

Tee hee. I had a close relative - 1293, LCB, RC40 and a 2" SU running an open trumpet. Whhirrrrrgggg suck popopop , bang - with appropriate screaming accompaniment from the drop gears. Terrific stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by felix:

quote:

1293 Mini - RC40 on LCB with Howley inlet and KN will live in my ears forever

Tee hee. I had a close relative - 1293, LCB, RC40 and a 2" SU running an open trumpet. Whhirrrrrgggg suck popopop , bang - with appropriate screaming accompaniment from the drop gears. Terrific stuff.

Also lowered so far that speed bumps could be a problem, but corners a pure joy. I could get water out of washer jets around the exit ramp off the M25 at the Egham junction.

My mum insisted that I fitted a carpet in the front as she did not like seeing the road whizzing by her feet.

It also the ultra-stiff clutch broke the bell housing twice, miles from home. So I became adapt at clutchless changes and reading the roads, avoid traffic lights, etc,

Jono

My Caterham 7 in several French tunnels this summer on the way to/from Le Mans

Any of the Matra engined F1 cars from '70-71 era. Sounded a bit like the soundtrack from a porn film.