Probably most of the V8 noises you hear these days have Flowmasters or similar "mufflers" on them. All they are is loud, unless there is enough compression and cam to make them impossible to drive on the street.
Come listen to my Camaro with a three inch single pipe and a big dynomax turbo muffler. Flavour, not just fire.
Tom1200 said:So my fabricator has been working on me for years now to put a V8 in the Datsun but one of the hurdles is most American V8s sound terrible to me so I haven't warmed up to the idea.
Meanwhile other V8s; Ferrari, Aston and BMW sound pretty good to me.
Is it the architecture perhaps or the exhaust type?
I will tell you I was watching one of the car build shows and the guys had a 60s stock car that sounded fantastic.
Basically most of the V8s I hear in traffic sound awful to me. Is this a case like the guys who put blat mufflers on 4 cylinder cars in that very few street car guys put decent exhausts on their cars?
So hive learn me / help me appreciate the good ole American V8 exhaust note or at least tell me how to make one sounds good or more importantly sound good to me.
Speaking as someone who finds the sounds of V8s to be unpleasant, and having had a lot of time to consider just what the issue is, I think it comes down to the uneven firing order on each bank, which will result in a choppy exhaust note that sounds like a dead plug. Kind of like how Subaru flat fours sound unpleasant compared to an inline four.
This unevenness is why dual exhausts need to have a crossover or X pipe to even out the pulses, although they don't do a very good job of it. The real fix is 180 degree headers, or a flat plane crank, both of which have enough of their own issues that they are never seen outside of specialty areas.
European makes spend a LOT more time engineering the exhaust to have a pleasing tone. American vehicles, especially trucks, seem to take a "DIGAF" approach and just route some pipes to a big muffler or two as necessary and then route it out somewhere behind the car. Euro makes will spend a lot of time tuning the pipe lengths and diameters, adding resonance stubs if necessary to the pipes, and the mufflers are multi chambered resonance boxes to mute out the harsh tones and just leave a kind of muted liquidy sound. Look at Woody's dog's V70R thread to see the weird kind of things they can do... the car in question has a second muffler with no outlet, it's strictly a resonance box!
Interestingly, as an aside, apparenrly people LIKE the blop-blop-blop V twin sound of a Subaru, as there are now headers available for inline fours that are heavily unequal in length, to duplicate the sound!
The worst sound in the world is a Chivvy truck with automatic trans and glass packs.
spitfirebill said:The worst sound in the world is a Chivvy truck with automatic trans and glass packs.
It's a tie with a 5.0 Mustang and Flowmasters.
Flowmaster mufflers are not only restrictive, but they damp out all the good frequencies and leave behind a thrashy blat that is grating on the ears.
Daylan C said:Regarding exhaust vs architecture. Probably a bit of both.
An LS truck motor usually sounds pretty bleh with loud exhaust while I'm pretty fond of the sound a C5/6 Corvette makes. I suspect it's a combination of the exhaust design mandated by both chassis' and the fact that the Corvette engines typicallly have higher compression, rev higher, and have cam shafts designed around making them rev higher and the more pleasant sound is a by product.
You can also strap a Flowmaster to anything you want and make it sound horrible. And V8 people love their Flowmasters.
EDIT: What Patrick said too.
Oh! Oh! My Challenge build pile of parts contains an LS truck motor, Corvette cam shaft, and two Flowmasters.
McDesign said:In reply to Tom1200 :
Here's my American V-8 with 180 degree headers - maybe explore that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65Jt3K3SU9Y
Forrest
This Sounds amazing to me
OHSCrifle said:McDesign said:In reply to Tom1200 :
Here's my American V-8 with 180 degree headers - maybe explore that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65Jt3K3SU9Y
Forrest
This Sounds amazing to me
It sounds nice running up the road, indeed! But it still has the dead-plug sound at idle and low load.
Now if you could take something like this, and engineer a silencer box to eliminate all the high frequency pops and leave behind a smooth buttery tone, that would be incredible.
JesseWolfe said:I personally think the loopy idle of a cross plane crank sounds better with 180° headers then a flat plane does. But, I grew up around drag racing, so that's my bias.
Yeah! That is what I want to hear!
In reply to OHSCrifle :
Thanks - I've recently built the longer tailpipe, but haven't cranked it yet.
The configuration in the video -
I welded these from Summit mandrel bends, and had Jet-Hot coat it again -
This all was driven by having stretched the wheelbase 10", but not lengthening the car - so I don't have much room behind the engine anymore -
Forrest
I'll take an LS with a decent cam and heads and a couple of Dynonax Race Bullet mufflers please.
I was all ready to say 180 degree headers gives the OP what he's looking for but was beat out. Keep in mind that building such headers requires running four primary tubes across the engine to the opposite bank. That's much easier in a mid-engine setup than front engine, where the needed space and resulting heat make it difficult.
Another way is running all eight primaries into one pipe. Either way it's a lot of plumbing.
I'm not quite sure what you're on about...Are you complaining about pushrod GM V8s, and Ford Coyote OHC motors? Because they sound very different, rev and fire differently, etc.
Your examples of engines you like include two exotics and BMW. What about Mercedes? Their V8s sound awfully similar to a Ford to my untrained ear. So basically, you like BMW V8s. Great! Put one in your car. Put it on a build thread. Should make for great reading!
In reply to McDesign :
Here's my V12 MB with exhaust dumps just after the cats; below the front seats. Nice to pull up beside Teslas on the Interstate, hit the button, and roar away.
Forrest
I've never liked the sound of LS's, not sure if it's the firing order or something. Just doesn't have the guttural bassy profundo of a classic SBC. Even camm'd out with a gnarly exhuast, doesn't have that thump.
Answer, DFV.
If your like me and the DFV along with Ferrari's V12 was your introduction to Motorsport nothing else sounds like it.
As for why I am sure it's the combination of many factors. ex. Displacement, RPM, Firing order, Compression ratio, System diameter and length, and Sound abatement. ( I have heard that Ferrai used smaller than optimal diameter headers for sound purposes)
Now if we could get wheels777 to chime in...
BarryNorman said:Answer, DFV.
If your like me and the DFV along with Ferrari's V12 was your introduction to Motorsport nothing else sounds like it.
As for why I am sure it's the combination of many factors. ex. Displacement, RPM, Firing order, Compression ratio, System diameter and length, and Sound abatement. ( I have heard that Ferrai used smaller than optimal diameter headers for sound purposes)
Now if we could get wheels777 to chime in...
Smaller than optimum has its benefits as well. Power is spead over a wider range essentially removing some of the peakyness.
I dunno guys, my buddy's Chevy SS with muffler deletes sounds pretty frickin sweet.
This thread has me reading up on firing orders. Why can't companies label cylinders the same way? It makes comparisons hard when one company says the passenger side is 1-4 driver is 5-8 while another company has odd on drivers and even on passengers.
buzzboy said:This thread has me reading up on firing orders. Why can't companies label cylinders the same way? It makes comparisons hard when one company says the passenger side is 1-4 driver is 5-8 while another company has odd on drivers and even on passengers.
The frontmost cylinder on the engine is always #1.
Well, except for Pontiac, who had the frontmost cylinder on the right side instead of the left like every other GM engine, but GM kept the same cylinder numbering to avoid confusion. What that means is when you have a Pontiac engine's oil pan off and are looking at the rods, from front to back they are numbered 21436587, instead of 12345678. (And on a Ford they would be numbered 15263748 because Ford numbers their cylinders dumb)
If you want really dumb, Jaguar numbered their V8s 1234. On both banks. I haven't run across one with a misfire to know how they reconciled that with cylinder identification.
DeadSkunk (Warren) said:Daylan C said:Regarding exhaust vs architecture. Probably a bit of both.
An LS truck motor usually sounds pretty bleh with loud exhaust while I'm pretty fond of the sound a C5/6 Corvette makes. I suspect it's a combination of the exhaust design mandated by both chassis' and the fact that the Corvette engines typicallly have higher compression, rev higher, and have cam shafts designed around making them rev higher and the more pleasant sound is a by product.
You can also strap a Flowmaster to anything you want and make it sound horrible. And V8 people love their Flowmasters.
EDIT: What Patrick said too.
Oh! Oh! My Challenge build pile of parts contains an LS truck motor, Corvette cam shaft, and two Flowmasters.
As it should. I have a very similar pile of parts in my inventory. I'm running a 3" single and some summit brand muffler that might get replaced with something else.
What do you think of this? It's a 347" small Ford with headers and a 3" single exhaust with a straight-thru muffler. In the video, it was only about 9:1 compression.
Knurled. said:spitfirebill said:The worst sound in the world is a Chivvy truck with automatic trans and glass packs.
It's a tie with a 5.0 Mustang and Flowmasters.
Flowmaster mufflers are not only restrictive, but they damp out all the good frequencies and leave behind a thrashy blat that is grating on the ears.
The 5.0 foxbody with flowmasters and an x pipe is my favorite exhaust sound ever. This is how I can tell we all like different things. I can't stand the sound of a 4 cylinder and my i6 doesn't please my ears either
The most likely engine to go in the car will be a 5.0 Ford.
@Dave M while I like the sound of European V8s I have heard some American V8s that sound good to me but couldn't tell you what variants they are.
The cars with 180 degree headers do sound good.
@snailmont5oh your cars sounds good what is the set-up?
Now for those you who called me a Heritic; it's far worse than that. Some of my favorite exhaust notes are Yamaha two stroke twins, especially TZ250s. I also like two stroke triples.
In reply to Tom1200 :
Thanks. Here's a link to the full description:
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/reader-rides/7220/
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