Fiestas are brilliant.....

Another bright sunny day in Scotland spent car spotting in the woods....

Main headlines are:

Mitsubishi Evo kills trout with understeer and antifreeze.

and

Fuel prices must be on the drop in the Un-United Kingdom as V8 engine heard running.

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Disappointingly not yet a Jackass

RWD cars are tons of fun to watch... awesome video thanks for sharing.

and there is never a Sube that sounds awe inspiring like an old Audi or Escort.

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heymagic
and there is never a Sube that sounds awe inspiring like an old Audi or Escort.

The owners of Blue Subies themselves have called that noise "farting elephant"...
It was that from a friend that led to the name for his car the "Le-gassy"
Hardly inspriing.

Weird ass firing order--VW aircooled shit dudn't sound like a farting elephant

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Really odd part is the exhaust goes thru a turbo then single pipe thru muffler and cat and most still sound like shite. Just watched an Aussie vid of a 3.6 being put in a legacy, sounded so sweet. Wonderful burble.

Speaking of Festers...this linked on the other 'RA' website https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WZhs_HTAACE

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john vanlandingham


Weird ass firing order--VW aircooled shit dudn't sound like a farting elephant

That's the funny part. There's only one firing order for a boxer four. Each pair of opposing cylinders has to fire 360 apart, so the only firing order is the two on one side, then the two on the other side, and any variations are just which end you call the front and which side is up.

I suppose you could time one cam 180 out so that you have a "big bang" car engine, which would shake a lot and sound like a V-twin. Maybe that's the secret rally engine building technique?

I did know someone with an equal length long-tube header on a 2.5RS (the one-year DOHC) and the thing sounded like a Honda.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2014 02:45AM by Pete.

Interesting thread, and on a first watch of the video, all I thought was how good the red Escort looked and how terrible those Group N R4 spec Evos sound.

I understood the Subaru off beat noise was down to the unequal length exhaust manifold design.

As soon as the WRC regs changed for 1997, and bespoke non production designs came in, the Boxer engine sound became more of a homogenous buzz, along with all the other cars.

I'm not sure how the USA Subarus are specced though as I don't know the regs StatesidI've watched a lot of Subarus and for my money, there are proper cars and half baked club cars. The latr are competent and I've no doubt the drivers are quite happy with their cost effective chariots. But foru outright spectacle, and the sound of a proper engine that communicates with its audience like a BDA does, don't dismiss a pre-97 Group A works Prodrive Subaru!

(Links are the same- on mobile device, so can't see!)

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Maybe, just maybe, it’s down to the driver.

VWMotorsport.info | SeatSport.info | 4 VW Golf Mk3 A59s exclusively revealed > here <



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2014 05:16AM by Chris Eyre.

A Sube either sounds pretty non-descript or shitty. The signature sound is shitty tho. We have noticed once in a while a Sube that does sound crisp and 'tight'. My son tells me the same thing about the header length.

The BDA on song is amazing, as is the Audi 5 and many of the 6 cylinder offerings. A Jag or 240z with duals is pretty sweet, a 50 Chev 6 with a split manifold and duals is the most godawful sound in the world.

There is a 70yo guy in Britain driving an old Escort that is simply amazing...Brent has his rally clips on in the shop all the time. Some old people rock instead of rot it seems.

Love hearing the old escorts!!
The newer fiestas and some escorts sound like little 2 stroke motors when they hit high RPMs

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Chris Eyre
But for outright spectacle, and the sound of a proper engine that communicates with its audience...

This is a big deal to me. Watching video of the car I was in at STPR, an RX7, and I couldn't help but think 'well that was less than inspiring...'. An RX is supposed to Scream, right?

Most people I have asked seem to do the 'straight pipe it, then add mufflers 'till its not ear splitting, then + a cat for legality' thing. This seems to create less than ear-catching racers.

And we do want ear catching racers right, draw more people to the sport?


I've read that a lot of the powerplants we have access to in the USA aren't as nice as some others, understanding that and putting working the engine aside for cost's sake how do we make do with what we have?

I guess long story short, I'm asking how do we make cost-effective improvements the sound of privateer cars?

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Enablers, All of you.

Exhaust sound is a bazillion dollar industry. With the advent of the Flowmaster a harshness came into the world. We used to used either 'turbo' mufflers or glaspacks. Both had a nicer sound. Typically todays smaller cars have the muffler at the rear , no tailpipe length to dampen and mellow the sound. We put 7 different systems on my son's supercharged Cavalier before getting it where we liked it. I put 3 or 4 on his Mustang and we got it .

So on one hand it may seem silly to worry about the tones but then again many do, including myself. A quality glaspak in 2 1/2 core sounds pretty good depending on the car, the tune, the muffler location and so on. Magnaflow sounds good on many cars, Borla seems pretty loud to me.

I Love the boxer rumble. sounds awesome. yes its due to unequal header length ( inefficiency )

but hey... Can't argue with results ... oh wait, unless the results are something subjective like "does this sound good , to you?" lol

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A1337STI
I Love the boxer rumble. sounds awesome. yes its due to unequal header length ( inefficiency )

but hey... Can't argue with results ... oh wait, unless the results are something subjective like "does this sound good , to you?" lol

Are you sure its not the bizarre firing order???

I've driven plenty of cars with un-equal header length but normal 1-3-4-2 firing order, they didn't sound like that.

I don't know----and I build engines...Are you sure?

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

I dunno to me all 4 of those sound really similar

but http://www.rahul.net/ddoudna/Subaru/boxer_engine_sound.html and not just reading that, but thinking about it ... it makes sense. ..

So yes its due to firing order... OR wait no, its actually due to header design in conjunction with firing order.

the exhaust rumbles due to the driver side getting 2 exhaust pulses in a row while the passenger side waits. you will get the rumble with anything short of a header design where you run an independent exhaust tube off each cylinder head before they all collect at 1 junction : say like this : though one side still looks a little bit longer to me.


the real correct answer due to the firing order making a correct "header" is much more expensive than making a cheap Exhaust manifold. the cheap manifold collects the exhaust with a minimal amount of exhaust tubing, which pairs the exhaust pulses .. Funky .

same firing order, different headers, no more "rumble" :





so ya just yesterday I was ignorant to the real reasons behind it.. but i did blindly belch out the correct answer. sort of like a broken clock is still right twice a day? :p

*sarcasm
next you are gonna tell me that the compressed air leaving the turbo gets hot because 1200F+ degree exhaust gasses are spinning it up, and that all of the heat gain is not due from the act of compressing the air.. :p /*sarcasm

Math time. Speed of sound 940 m/s
find the difference in the equal length and un-equal length.
Say the difference is 0,4m

Now tell me you can hear the difference in 1/850th of a second difference..
I dun't think I can..


But really , ...who cares.

Internet lore.. Turbos spool because of heat.
Just put yours in an oven and turn it to "clean" where both elements come on HOT.
Boost!

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.