What he said! My T has 18" 'packs and the 54 has 24"ers. Nothing like that sound. Mellow when you need it but hit the loudpedal and all hell breaks loose.
That's what's nice about 'packs - you can drive around the noise if you want to. After much umm...activity on Woodward last year, it got to the point where the local LEO's took to following me as I did a loop. Had the car been fitted with straights - I'd been hard pressed to keep from gettin' pulled over. My hair - while still on my head - has a fair amount of gray these days. Either that's the sign of hard-won knowledge...or the primer ain't comin' out as easy any more! In either case - I see the benefit nowadays of avoiding 'engagement' with local peacekeepers. Besides - the tone is there with 'packs. I've run straights, and even a burnt 'pack cuts the rasp of straights. Lucy the Chrysler will be a first - will have both, as I'm cutting in 80" lakes using cutouts; I'll be able to switch on demand. Muff tool....hahahahahahahahahahaha! now THAT's funny!
You shoulda told her to eat yer corn! LMAO as far as gl*** packs are concerned, I even have them on my daily ( suburban) cuz they scare the tourists ,HAHA swaZZIe
Bros 81 Fireturd,rotted body i mean rotten so bad we made a chicken wire trunk floor so it would hold a damn spare,but anyhoo nice gl***packs meeting right at the rear axle with turn downs,oh the alarms we set off with that
Ahh, a man after my own heart. So often in the summer when some self-important ***** from Chicago is tailgating me with his Tahoe, I wish I had about a '70 Suburban with loud exhausts, bad paint and a brush cage...
Ya know, this noise vs the music thing is interesting. I know that most like the 22-24" packs, but I've had some interesting results with 28-32" packs behind big engines . . . 390 on up. I've found as well that you don't have to burn out or rust out or whatever on the muff. Give it a couple of weeks and it'll settle in about where it's gonna sound for the rest of it's usable life. To my ear, open exhaust sounds like the car is broken. With one un-muffled outlet, perhaps two, it sounds nothing like a set of open headers do at the track. Gl***packs carry a tune like nothing else. It's all about the music and not just about making noise. I would like to add one more to AlbuqF-1's well selected list. I used to have a 68 Ducati, 350cc four stroke, the mouse trap springs model and not the desmo, but it sounded as good as any desmodromic Ducati around. With it's single cylinder dumping into a long pipe that culminated in a reverse cone megaphone spinning the engine up to 9200 rpm or so brought forth the purest of sounds. I never heard anything like it before and haven't heard anything like it since. Sweet sounds long gone, but fondly remembered....
C - you gots it! it ain't about loud - it's about the sound! Was working on dynos for McLaren engines nearly 20 years back, and they had a cosworth v8 they used for dyno calibration. that engine was the worst sounding thing I've heard - before or since - like a chansaw cuttin' thru coffee cans. Ick. It's definitely about tone...well worth taking the time to experiment to get it 'right'. Muff placement, pipe diameter, pipe length...they all play a role. long pipes = deeper tone.
****** big tubes with 30 inch Mitchells on the old 383 and the BBC's Tri-Y Doug Thorleys with 18-24 inch Cherry Bombs or Purple Horneys on the Small blocks Fentons & Smitty's on the flatheads with those little pipes that bark like a mean little dog. Comming downhill, engine breaking with flames coming outa the packs sounding like a logging truck burbling and popping, then winding it out thru the gears when you hit the flats... Those were the days...
Makes you wonder who ever invented "regular" mufflers----and why! When gasoline and air explode it isn't supposed to be quiet!
If I remember right, my uncle used to saturate the insides of his Smitty's or Cherry Bombs with oil and then Bar-B-Q them to burn the gl*** out. Saved all that break in time and that annoying muffling action that's inherent to most mufflers... Jonny
update on uncapped dumps... was heading towards work yesterday afternoon and had to go through the slums. every now and then at this one place, i frequently see toddlers playing near the road. really ****s, i know. poor kids don't have much of a chance at all... anyways, they were throwing bricks out into the road. like 3 yrs old, tops, chucking bricks into the road. saw em at a distance, pushed the clutch in and rapped it up a couple of times. they turned around and ran all the way to their house. so i feel good about two things, getting them away from the road and the fact that little kids are afraid of my impala.
I'm reminded of when I was a toddler. Our first house was on the landing pattern for Phelps-Collins airport in Alpena and apparently I'd go running in terror every time a plane came low over the house. Must not have been too traumatic, though, I often wish I had dumps on my car.
Who needs mufflers, or pipes for that matter. Caddy has been runnin like **** for a LONG time now. Rough as hell rings a bell. Anyway. Was under there doing a starter solenoid change, when I saw the exhaust manifolds, four lil bolts, and about 3 inches of rust, before newer aluminized pipes. So... got out my breaker bar, and managed to carefully extract all four bolts. Pulled those pipes down a couple inches, got behind the HUGE honker of a steering wheel, turned the key, and WHOOOOOOOOOO momma. What a sweet friggin sound. Kinda like a cross between a harley, and a nascar. After about a week of wrenchin on various things, swapping spark plugs and wires, pulling the valve covers to stop some seeping oil. Just generally playing around, I had some preppy punk come stompin out of his appartment. Apparently we aint supposed to work on cars at the appartments (guee...ooops... I forgot). He stomps up with his muscle tee on (ooohhh... I'm scared). He says..."Why the **** you gotta rev that thing up to 5500 rpm every time you park?" I says..."Actually it's only about 3500" He says... "That piece of **** sounds like it's running rich as hell, can't you tune an engine for ****>" I says..."Actually it has a bad cylinder" He says..."Why don't you get that damned thing fixed" I says... "why don't you pay for it" He says... oh wait.. that's right... NOTHING. ****er turns around and walks back up to his appartment shaking his head. Wow... that was fun. Well worth all the violations my appartment complex is threatening me with now. Nuff said Peace
first rule of loud pipes is: don't **** where you live! if i lived in an apartment building, and some **** with no exhaust revved his broken motor to 3500 rpm every day, he wouldn't be livin there long. you gotta be at least slightly considerate of your neighbors man. but i suppose it's probably just the carbon monoxide seeping through the firewall altering your judgement.
As for carbon monoxide... uhm... nope. I put a combo smoke and CO detector in the glove box. Smoke detector goes off once in a while from the burnin oil, but so far the CO detector hasn't. And yes... I agree with the "Don't **** where you live". But I was workin on it at 5:30pm. Not like it was 11:00 at night. You could still hear the b*** from the idiots with the big speakers rattling their trunks, OVER my exhaust. So... I got nothin more to say.
Chucks peed: You should be a writer. That was better than the commentary in Hustler. PnB: I'm glad you're nice. ' couldn't of thought of a better response myself. I bet you were smiling big the 2nd time. C9: I agree. The only thing better than that sound for miles on the interstate, is when you havta let-off for your off-ramp.
Pretty much our fix except who the hell had a BAR-B-Q. We used to cap off one end and pour a quart of oil into the muffler then flip it over and let it drain overnight prior to install. Smoked like hell at first but the sound was right and we were legal.
Trouble for me with the open pipes bit is that the engine they're tied to is usually stock so there's no real music to start with, it's simply noise. All about perceptions I guess and different strokes for sure, but the right muffs on the right engine.... Kinda funny how the exhaust note can change in the same car without swapping engines or muffs or altering the exhaust in any way. The 32 sounded a certain way with it's first two short-lived exhaust systems. (The first one so short-lived that it never felt the heat and fire from a running engine.) Anyhoo, when I got the exhaust system to where I wanted it, it had a nice note and tone. It sounded pretty good when running between the tall wall on the freeway off-ramp and the short cement barricades between the off-ramp and freeway. Rolling the throttle on made for some sweet music, but just cruising along was a song in another key. What made it interesting was how the sound was altered perception-wise after the top was installed. It got a little louder in the ****pit and still sounded nice. I thought for a while that it was just subjective thinking, but it turns out I was right. Pulling the top made for a quieter running car exhaust note-wise. It wasn't additional windflow like you'd think, the wind noise levels are higher with the top on. Could be with the change in airflow over the ****pit that the air is blocking some of the sound from hitting the occupants. Regardless, rolling on the throttle when running ******* on the country two laners made for some nice sounds. Neutral throttle made you have to listen for the exhaust, but once the throttle was on a bit, nice sounds indeed. You can run a simple little experiment with your car. Bring a camera. There aren't many opportunities to catch a pic of your car in it's proper environment . . . which is . . . running the road. Go out to a quiet country road and have your pal drive the car away from you, toward you, both times with light throttle settings - and if he/she's a capable driver - do the same at full throttle settings. Then maybe a cruise by with cruise throttle and best of all, a full throttle blast from a dead stop. You may be surprised at what you hear. I shot some video of the 32 not long after it was up and running. At the time, the big cam and dual quads were in it. Sum*****, dang thing sounded like a fuel dragster starting up in the garage . . . ok, an A/Gas car anyway. Only thing I wonder about with this car and the big Buick engine is the intake sounds. Different from any car I ever owned. Instead of the Whhhhaaaaaa sound of an SBC, it's more of a Bwaaaaaaaahhh sound. Maybe it's the difference between engines or attributable to the size differential between an SBC 327 and the 462" of the Buick. Granted, the tone with the Buick is b***ier (izzat a word?), but it's also a different kind of sound. The big Buick sounds ok, but it ain't nothing like the exhaust note from the high winding small blocks we used to hear fading off into the orange groves on a warm winter night in SoCal. Throw in a second car, a few rubber chirps and you had the full orchestra. If you're gonna fall in love with hot rod sounds, you can't hardly beat the good ol SBC. From either end....
Nicely said, C. I've had afew SBC's, but the motors that really sound off for me are old Chryslers or flattie Fords. The Chryslers FLOW - that flow changes the note inna good way. Meanwhile - the exh ducted thru the block of Cast Iron Charlie's wonder of a mill sounds soo sweet with a compresion bump and a set of 'packs. It's all music, mang. Ain't at al like listening to a Subaru WRX; the nte has no tona quaity whatsoever. Yep - they're quick, but the sound doesn't mae me wanna tip in just for the heckuvit at every lite like some other motors...
I've written about it before, so I'll just touch on it here. The fastest car in high school was a Desoto Hemi powered 32 five window. The car was unbelievably well done for the time and would fit in at any show or rod run going today. Over a three year period or so it ran a couple different Desoto's with Herbert roller cams. The first iteration, one of the medium sized engines with four 97's in line. The last, the biggest Desoto, six 97's, roller cam etc. I used to work at the Texaco Station attached to the Desoto agency and the Deuce coupe owners dad owned the car dealership and the gas station. So one day, around dusk I heard what I thought was a gang of motorcycles. It was a few seconds until I recognized the little Deuce coupe, still running the six 97's and now sporting eight tailpipes that ran straight from exhaust port to about even with the rear bumper. The little coupe was running down the four laner to the gas station. He pulled into the station, g***ed up, we talked for a bit, he fired the coupe and took off into the darkening night. I know I criticize - and openly so - straight pipes, but this thing had a sound like no other. Never heard anything like it before or since . . . but I'm still hoping.... And then there was my built Olds powered 50 Ford coupe with DragFast collectors . . . but that's a whole other story....
i had (well still have) a56chevy with 57 model 283 ram horn exhaust and 098 duntov cam and 427 corvette factory chambered exhaust turned backwards so they would turn out in front of rear tires .when it sat at idle it sounded like a john deere tractor but get that thing wound up wow. more than my share of IMPROPER NOISE tickets.
The Jalopy Journal
