I didn't mean to sound as condescending, sorry...it's just that those "muscle" cars annoy me lol. Too many times, I've been sleeping or reading or something, and this car floors it with his/her "modded" car...in the middle of a vacant lot or empty road. I mean sure, you've got a car, and you've reduced the backpressure, giving you an extra 10% HP...and maybe this serves you in some practical sense. I understand the desire to give your engine more power, but not the desire to purely make it louder, as this thread was geared toward.
I was not kidding about the "jab" at all those non-stock mufflers, but perhaps I should have refined the jab... It's just to people who do it only to make it louder with no other goal...that's just obnoxious. Also speaking of people that do it to cars with engines that are not worth it... (not the N* of course). An extreme example is the number of Neons I've seen with that HUGE exhaust tailpipe... This part is strictly an opinion, but I really think that's ugly as sin. Ruins any line or symmetry the vehicle had...not that a Neon looks cool to begin with.
All I meant by the mention of the 4 cylinder is that if you took the muffler, etc.. off it would sound
louder, not
better. Again, bad choice of words on my part, for which I apologize. The thing is, making your car louder is not an impressive feat. Anyone can do it. If you put my car next to a 4 banger, it sounds better with the muffling system as well...so the level of noise is rather irrelevant to how "good" an engine sounds. I realize you wouldn't put a Taurus exhaust on a "performance" car, but the thing is, the
noise factor can be achieved by both performance mufflers and complete pieces of....
... If your goal is to make it perform better, then there are mufflers that will reduce backpressure, but they don't
try to make it louder. Again, I apologize for my rather broad bash, but I'll refine the jab again...basically referring to those that would mod their car to be louder even if it had no effect on performance... Like Plato said, wise men talk because they have something to say, fools talk because they have to say something....you know what? Scratch that... Actually, I'm just thinking about it, and I think I honestly just don't think an internal combustion engine sounds cool. A bunch of cumbersome explosions going off. I think a jet sounds cool lol...although that's just too loud to the point of damaging your ears. But I think I feel this way because I like "smoother" sounds. No matter how well it's running, curtailing the exhaust seems to make the sound "rougher." Kinda gives me the feeling that the car is "chugging" along instead of "zoooooommm"
Don't take this umm...entirely the wrong way, I'm not above some showmanship in the car...but I really think it's more impressive and more of a kick in the face if you're the racing/flooring it type if you have the car quiet. Picture this... Someone in a GT or whatever has gutted his muffler, and floors it making some ***hole maneuver to cut you off...His engine is waking the dead...and you floor your N* and sail past him. Which do you think is a better "up yours"? I guarantee the putz would be a lot more shot down if his car sounds like Lucifer screaming, and is passed by a car that doesn't have to break a sweat to beat him.
This part is just me thinking out loud...don't know how practical it is, but it's what I would do if I had gobs of cash sitting around and wanted to "mod" my exhaust. I'd want to fabricate the muffler myself. You could take the muffler off, and make a recording of the engine at various RPM. Take that recording, and stick it in the computer and open it with a spectrum analyzer. That would show you the peak frequency of the sound... The resonator in a muffler cancels out sound waves of a specific length, which is the length of the resonator. By doing this, you could use the wavelength from the spectrum analyzer and fabricate the muffler's resonator to exactly that length, minimizing the need for extra passageways to quiet the engine. If it were practical, I'd also dunk the whole thing in high temperature silicone goo... That would dampen the hell out of the vibration and hey, no rusting! Ah well...anyone know where to get a vat of silicone goo? :bang2: