Almost all older muscle cars(Camaro,Corvettes and even Mustangs) have a tinging hollow sound to them. But I haven't ever heard that same sound on any new model cars. A '69 Camaro with duals and flowmaster sounds a whole lot different than 82-Now Camaros.

Example- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhnArl8GTjQ
About 46 seconds into that video, you can hear what I'm talking about. What exactly makes this sound, and why haven't I heard newer cars sound that good? Is it the stainless steel pipes, or cat? Can someone tell me what combo would make a car sound like this, with chambered exhaust and X-pipe of course. Thanks

 

it sounds like that mostly bacause of the cam in the 350 a more extreme cam will give you that kind of sound

 

Yeah, but is that all? I've heard cammed up 3rd gens that sound nothing like that.

 

well the first gens do have true dual exhaust, but mainly it's the cam, as far as i know.

 

alot of it is the exhaust the dual gives it a deeper hollow sound alot of newer mustangs have a similar sound since they do have a dual system

 

Ok, so thats basically it? Just a cam, and dual exhaust? Stainless steel pipes don't make any different compared to iron pipes? I just trying to get information early, so later on when I'm getting the exhaust I know what to get.

 

i wouldnt think it would make a diffrence for sound with pipe material but pipe size and the muffler/'s you use and how much tail pipe will make a differance too

 

that's an extremely large cam. However the hollow deep sounds IMHO is from oversized exhaust. Bet that guy has a cammed 350, and dual 3" exhaust with 1.75" primary headers, or something like that.

Yes, turn downs give more of a ground rumble, and straight pipes... give a different sound.

A carbed car will always sound better than an FI car IMHO. The grumble of a carb is nicer then the smooth as butter FI sound. Example? Beefed up 2nd gen camaro or TA (TA has downpipes if stock setup), compared to a newish mustang with flowmaster/borla setup. Both loud, but the camaro sounds NICE.

 

I agree with sonix, you won't hear anything sound like old muscle if it's fuel injected

 

Ok thanks. I was thinking about turns downs, I haven't really seen anything that appealed to me like they do. Yeah a carb is a must though, don;t care much for FI. Ok what about headers, is there a major sound different in shorties compared to LTs?

 

turndowns also like Sonix said turndowns do give a diff sound along w/ f.i. and fireing order. im in the process of doing my exhaust again but with duals there is ground cleasrance issues but it does give it the sound and its a lil simpler than trying to get a y pipe to work

 

my car sounds EXACTLY like that, its f'ing music to my ears, i love it so much. another thing that helps the sound, is untuned-length headers. have to get those, theym ake all teh difference in the sound, gives it that choppy, uneven idle sound. now, im running some classic 2-chamber mufflers, 1 7/8 primaries, 2.5" duals to the back, plus its all attached to a 454 big block... man its the best **** ever... ever since i got this car, ive became a regular at the gas station... 6 times a mnth atleast.

 

Yeah thats what I like, that choppy eneven idle. Im not a fan of steady idling cams. What are untuned-length headers though?

So heres what I'm looking at. 1 7/8 primaries, x-pipe, 2.5 duals(3" seems like it would be too much for a 305), chambered exhaust, and finally turn downs.

What duration/lift cam would get me at around 1500 rpm idle? Is that about whats in that camaro? Oh yeah and Solid instead of Roller right?

 

untuned headers are the cheaper ones. Most shorties are like that.

good lord, shooting for a 1500RPM idle is NOT the way to pick a cam. Specially on a 305. Give your head a shake!

Get a cam for your power band, and i'm pretty sure you'll like the exhaust note it has.

 

Hmm so what dur./lift would you recommend for the choppy idle I'm looking for? Since I dont know much about picking the right cam.

 

a choppy idle is a bad thing. It means it has NO LOW END power. It's fine for a race car, but trust me, the sound will get old, and the gas guzzling, gutless wonder that you're driving will get old even faster.

A mild rough idle still sounds quite nice, and the cam that does that will complement your car better.

make a post in the tech/general engine, asking about cam recommendations.
Give year of block, engine size, modifications done, heads, transmission, rear gears.

 

Not necessarily true. My 350 sounds pretty rough with 11:1 CR and my XE274 cam, and has plenty of midrange punch and top end, but the bottom end power did not suffer at all.

Usually, it seems like it though, because the low end power will stay more-or-less the same, and midrange and top end improve, and it makes the bottom end "feel" weaker.

 

rofl dude, theres 2 kinds of choppy, uneven idles.
the one where u hacked ur pipes off at the headers/y-pipe, or the big engine/cammed/old school header uneven idle.
and i dunno bout u, my car guzzles gas, but it aint a "gutless wonder"
or atleast thats not what every 5.0 mustang in this city thinks... i think the reason it guzzles gas is kuz its a chevy big block topped with a holley carb.

 

Well I'm not too worried about it being a gas guzzler. If I was then I would have a 4 cyl. It doesnt nessasarily have to be a big engine to be cammed up. Look at the 302s. I dont know about you, but the choppy idle will never get old with me. I'm more of a sound over quality kinda person. Maybe 1500 is a little too rough but then 1000 is rough enough. Some where in-between is good enough for me.

IrocNroll, what does your car idle at? Your right about the 2 types of choppy(red neck trucks, and Muscle Cars)

 

huhuhuhu... i idle at 700.
funny thing, my 454 is from a 1973 half ton, with a stock cam, its a bone stock motor... im givin it the big ol rebuilt this winter... i swear to god its the uneven headers... these headers are freaking circa 1981, back then they made headers cheaply, and the farthest primary is prolly 9" longer that the closest. when its idling, all the pistons fire in succession, but since the pipes are longer/shorter, they exhaust bursts exit the tail pipe at different times... oh yeah and if u want that hollow sound buy a pair of the 2 chamber mufflers (invented in like 1950's) i picked 2 up off of summit for $30 a piece i think..

oh yeah, you might be in a pickle for that sound with a 5L... unless u wanna fab up ur own headers, or snag some from the wreckers that came off a really old car... hey if anyone has any info that makes more sense than this, speak up, im only a 16 yr old kid going by experience.

 

hey Air_Adam, howd u get ur compression up to 11:1? did u put 305 heads on ur 350? oh yeah, and u prolly wanna slap me, but im prolly gonna buy a 4th gen... i HATE how the engine compartments are so cramped, and u can mod em a lot without having to spend 2 yrs worth of paychecks on em. i think im pretty much hooped for a muscle car chop with an LT1... unless i somehow put my 454 in it

 

I did... I put modified #601 castings on my 350, which has a set of flat top pistons in it.

 

The sound you want is had with an engine that has decent compression and power, headers, lopey cam, no converters, true duals, and Flowmaster 40 Series. This is the sound of cruise nights and car shows everywhere.

 

BTW, EFI can sound like a 4bbl. It's more in the cam and exhaust, I know of a few Thirds that sound alot like way back muscle, if you've ever heard TRAX's IROC-Z in his videos from when he owned it you'll see what I mean.

 

alright fellas, wake up and smell the coffee here. He was talking about throwing something like a compxe294 into a bone stock LG4. 1500RPM idle, that's about what I assumed he meant.
You guys still think that's NOT going to be a gutless wonder? That's a poor combination right there.

hey adam, track test the 350 yet? I've got the ported 416's on a 350 with a "268" cam. I'd like to see how it stacks up.

 

That 'tinging' sound you hear is caused by camshaft overlap. Overlap is the period of time when both the intake and exhaust valves are open at the same time. Most modern cars and camshafts have very little overlap because of emissions and fuel economy reasons. Overlap can be increased by grinding a cam with either more duration, less lobe separation, or both. In a small block Chevy, you need about 65-70 degrees of overlap on a solid lifter cam to get that sound. There are other factors that affect how 'good' that sound is. Tube headers make it more pronounced, solid cams usually sound better than hydraulics, and the more compression you have the better it sounds. As others have said, you need to match the cam to the rest of your engine combo because putting a big cam in a small motor with low compression will cause it to run like a dog.

 

Sonix, I probably shouldnt have said 1500 rpm idle... may be a little too much but it just popped into my head. It's not going to be bone stock when the cam is going in, we're rebuilding the whole engine, adding parts on as we go. And if it makes any difference, it's an L69. Probably should have added more info to the topic.

And thanks for the info neil

 

unfortunately you will got a lot of ppl saying to just go for a 350 and i dont blame them but the 305 will still run and soundgood with the right parts matched for your powerband and budget. im in the process of doing duals with a or h pipe and im hoping for a similar sound that you are talking about. im just doing it though so i dont have to red my exhaust later since ill be speending big $ into the 383

 

my 305 sounds good to me. when it runs of course.

 

haha me too ive only driven my car mabey 1500mile since the motor was built ans i had to pull the heads cause i had a broken rockerstud and a bent valve but yea it sonded good with the 2 1/4 I pipe cat delete and into a 80series flowmaster but not enough flow for upper rpms.

 

The key to the old muscle car sound is not exhaust. The exhaust only 'tunes' the sound, it doesn't completely change it.

The trick to getting that famous 'rump-ity rump-ity rump-ity' sound is two things - a long duration cam with lots of overlap, and lots of compression. All of the old muscle cars that had purpose-built high performance engines in them, like the old DZ 302 cars, or the LS6 big blocks, etc... they all had compression ratios between 10.5:1 and 12.5:1. They also had HUGE cams, with alot of overlap. A good example of this is the DZ 302 cam. It was redicuously big for that motor. Its was even too much for most bigger motors too. It had something in the area of 250* @ .050" intake and something similar on the exhaust. It was a HUGE cam. It needed its 11:1 compression ratio just to make it even somewhat driveable on the street with a 4-spd and 4.11 or shorter gears. With an auto trans and tall gears, it would have been a total pig and would never get out of its own way.

I forget where I'm going with this... but its a big cam and high compression that get you the muscle car sound, not exhaust. Exhaust just tunes the sound.

 

hard to tell from a video, but that sounds like a big block..

i'd say that i have a pretty lump setup... i need some new video to show it, but tihs was before the bigger cam...

http://www.ss-perf.com/videos/dyno42005.wmv

about 12 seconds in you can here it... that was also at high idle... bout 900rpm... now it idles around 650...

 

Jimmy, make a post in general engine, about a cam suggestion, for a built up 305, L69. Name off all mods done, gears, etc.

It isn't an exhaust question, so you'd get more advice in the tech/general engine forum

MWnova may have a sound clip of his 305 with the solid cam. That's very much on the large side, but I imagine it'd sound awesome. I'd also guess he got a sub 1000RPM idle with it. 1500RPM is very excessive, lets not even continue discussing that
I think his is 238/248 or so.

My cam is like Adams, 227/234. It can idle at 500RPM steadily if I wanted it to. I idle it at 750RPM however. It has a stock muffler I think, and so it's idle is kinda quiet. Not flowmaster loud, but not "normal car" quiet. Anyone with some brains can tell by the sound of the idle it's not stock, there is a beast within. Punching it, and getting to ~5000RPM it's just roaring.

 

750-800rpm idle...unfortunately no sound clips with the new heads/cam and bumped c/r. went from 9.5:1 with stock 416's and a 214/224 cam to the 10.4:1 c/r, worked 113 heads, 238*/248* @ .050 .480"/.500" 114lsa and it's pretty crazy sounding...though it requires a 4000 stall converter and atleast 3.73's (going to 4.10's this winter) i'm running 1 5/8" longtube headers (all you need for a 305 that's spun less than 6500rpm) and dual 2.5" exhaust with h-pipe and flowmaster knock-offs dumped before the rearend.

you're gonna have to do alot more research to get the car to work together as a whole package instead of just throwing money at it. you also gotta know what the goal is. if it's only to look cool and sound cool, but run like a$$...then your in the right direction...but isn't it so awesome that the SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY spent on different items makes it sound cool and ride like the wind?!?!

 

Thanks for the comments. I do need to get a lot more research before I start with this stuff, but I guess that's why I started getting info about it now, since I have a while til I start that part of the project. I think I have the exhaust part all down, now I'm just getting into learning about the engine side.

:S I think I had the idling rpm in my head all wrong. I hope to get that straightened out.

 

the good thing is that the heads on the car are already decent. you can do a little work to them and they work really well. you can run a stock style replacement piston and a .015" steel shim head gasket to boost c/r. then a larger cam like what i'm running will be able to be utilized better. also, a 1 7/8" primary header is not going to be useful on anything with less than about 400+ cubes and is designed for an engine that revs into the 8000+rpm range.

a 1 5/8" primary tube longtube header will be PERFECT for what your running. the hollow sounding exhaust can be had by going a bit large on the pipe diameter. a dual 2.5" exhaust will let you hear the cam/compression a bit better, but a dual 3" exhaust will give you that hollow/tingy sound your looking for.

i figured it out right at $3000 to build my engine and exhaust system

 

i know from when i put my new motor in it sounded completely diffrent than it did with the old one. all i did was get rid of all the smog and a/c added a cam and it was bored .030 over and heads were shaved a good bit since the boy that had the motor b4 somehow warped them pretty bad and i got a ful valvejob . like i said though it made that 80 series i had on there sound a lot better than it was with the old tired 217,xxx lg4

 

The keys to the old muscle sound are a short duration/low overlap cam, cast iron exhaust manifolds, dual exhaust and turbo mufflers.

Those cars typically run 16's to 17's.

 

hahahha im curious where you get your stuff from... short duration cam hey? turbo mufflers? why do you think they call a classic 2 chamber muffler a classic? kuz its old, and they put those on dual exhaust muscle cars. i dont think they used turbo mufflers on those cars, kuz theyre quite as s**t.

 

Where do I get my stuff?

He asked about the "old" muscle sound, and I'm old.

2-chamber is new tech.

 

wierd, kuz last time my pop told me, they were invented in like the 50's or 60's.... my dad rebuilds muscle cars, hes got a 69 rs/ss and its got a big duration cam, untuned headers, 2 chamber mufflers, duals, and no cats... sounds EXACTLY what that video shows... all hollow sounding and choppy

 

flowmaster came out with the 2 chamber muffler in the mid 90's. listen to five7kid...he IS old and has been around the cars during the muscle car hey day. (no offense five7)

old skool muscle had 2" dual pipes and thrush mufflers that would be considered red neck by todays standards.

to be completely honest, the sound he's looking for comes from newer valvetrain technology with higher compression...and if you look in the tech/general engine board i gave him a great combo that would work well (considering his cubic inch limitations) and sound great.

 

"Muscle car" - a "small" car with a "large" engine. aka GTO - economy car (by the standards of the day) Tempest with a 389 (aka 6.5l) engine. Very often with a 2 bbl carb and 2-speed Powerglide transmission. Then followed the Chevelles, but never quite the same. Baracudas, same story - take an econocar and put a big engine in it, but you've got to save money, so put the occasional 273 in them - with loud exhaust, of course.

Sound mean, run like dogs.

That's the "old" muscle car sound.

Mustangs? Camaros? Those are "pony cars". Yes, I remember when they all came out. Read magazines about them. Saw many in the school parking lot and even more owned by discharged vets returning from Nam. The GIs were the ones that had the "real" muscle cars - Road Runners, BB Chevelles, Shelby Stangs - they could afford them, but they didn't sound nearly as mean as the 2bbl cars.

You see, most people don't have a clue what they're asking for. And, as so often happens, don't have a clue what a car that performs really sounds like. But, they know what a car that sounds like it performs sounds like - problem is, cars that sound like they perform rarely do.

I saw a very impressive (by my standards) car at the track last weekend - 1st gen Camaro, NA BBC, ran low 11's at our 5800' track; sitting in the top row of the grandstands at mid-track, I could hardly hear it. To me, that car truly had "muscle". I wish mine sounded like that. But, I'm stuck with 2-chamber sound for now.