exhaust note

C

carlssonaero

New Member
I don't like the breathy exhaust note of my car but drove another yesterday. This was a rough car but the exhaust note was clearer. Although mine has a nice rumble I'd compare the 2 by saying mine sounds like a person with catargh compared to someone just having sucked a menthol sweet!. Yes it has a nice rumble but just not so sweet. I bought my car recently and there is no doubting its condition but was told it happened to have the smaller bore of the pipes that were available. Has anyone heard of there being 2 different standard equipment bores and if so where might I get a bigger bore pipe.. Ideally it would be nice to find out that mine is smaller than was supposed to be fitted such that when changing to the bigger "standard" size, I won't need to tell Insurers anything. What are the options out there

Thanks

Julian
 
The 3500S Manual has a bigger bore manifold and down pipes than the 3500 Auto. The shape of the front pipes are different though so I can't see how the two could be swapped unless the front pipes were specially made. Sorry but i'm not sure about the rest of the system.

All exhaust systems tend to sound different depending on the thickness of the steel and type of baffling used in the silencers. When I had a stainless system made for my car a few years ago they made up a sports back box with a larger diameter tail pipe. Really made a difference to the sound with more of a throaty note than the original system. The system was made by Ascar in Sheffield and it worked out cheaper than an off the shelf system from a specialist and included fitting.

Some mild steel systems sound best on the P6 once the baffles have started to decay inside the silencers!!
 
hi,
bb is right about the two diameters, but around about 1974 they made the auto the same diameter ( bigger ) as the 3500's. what they did was enlarge the end of the down pipe to take the back two exhaust boxes which are fitted to the 3500's, therefore making it simpler to order your back two boxes as they could be used for the auto and manual.

ian
 
To my mind (crazed as it may be) the Rover V8 has a lovely rumble to it. My blue car which I waffle on about all the time has a custom exhaust set up.
I run a set of four into two into one headers with 1.5" primarys dumping into a 3" outlets each side. I only have one silencer on each side and the car sounds like a Spitfire at idle and a drag car at speed! Needless to say I will be fitting a secondary sport muffler on the two outlet pipes. This will hopefully prevent to many fines from the fine boys in blue!
I also have dual pipes fitted and they are a very natty look if I do say so! The only downside is that the battery box needs to be moved and the bottom drivers side section of the boot tray needs a little bit of remodelling to clear the new pipes. I had some local blokes do the work and it cost me $690 Aust for it, I was told to be careful since with a big bore system you can have not enough back pressure to let the engine run smoothly. Whatever they have done the new engine pulls like a train, and shows a 17.8hp increase on the Dyno!!
My advice is find a company that does custom work and explain your needs, you will find that they are generally delighted to work on something other than the usual rice burners that infest the roads today. :)
 
I think one exhaust is never like another on old cars, especially when a number of aftermarket jobs have been fitted over the years. Some are good, some are not, it was probably the only one availible at the time (or the cheapest), the only thing they have in common is that they are a shape that fits the car !
Ron sounded wonderfull (and quite loud) untill the old exhaust sprouted some holes, maybe some of the baffles had rusted out. My new exhaust was a disapointment, so I took the backbox off, too LOUD ! (well I come home late at night, and upset the neighboures). My solution was to visit my local speed shop and buy a "cherry bomb" type silencer of 2" bore, I used the original pipe off the backbox and fitted the cherry bomb in place of the original using a adapter pipe. Total cost £30. Ron now rumbles discreetly, a mate says it's like distant thunder coming down the road, I'm happy.
I must say the diameter of the new exhaust narrows a lot where it bends, it must constipate the engine, I will look a lot closer at the next exhaust I buy.
 
on my 2.2TC I used a straight through silencer from Larkspeed (leeds) when the middle silencer failed, the pipework was still very solid (early exhausts seam to be made out of 16gauge steel instead of the modern 18/20 guage stuff) So I used the original pipework and welded the new box in.

I also replaced the tailpipe with a straight through 'Cherry bomb' type with chrome tailpipe. It looks lovely and the exhaust note is almost as good as a V8 (but not quite !)

Not sure of any performance gains, but it did save me loads of cash as I had already got all the silencers from an aborted project.

Richard
 
Hello,Iv'e just bought a 72 3500s(5speed),One of the first things i done to my rolling project was the exhaust,I cut the first box out & replaced it with some exhaust tubbing,then took the back box off & put a standard rs turbo escort mk4 back box on(with some cutting & weilding),finished it of with a 2 1/4" Chrome tail.The sound that come's out is music,It's not over loud but kicks in at 2000rpm(TVR or COBRA come to mind)Later on i might buy a S/S system,but for now i make do.
 
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