Nothing sounds better than an classic american big block V8 with headers, big cam, and nice dual exhausts.   

Craig. wrote on Jan 4^th, 2007 at 6:57pm:

Actually Craig, the "rough" sound you hear from classic American V8s isn't neccessarily from a lack of proper tuning.  Many classic muscle cars that are restored and have the motors built up a bit have an over sized camshaft in them which gives the car a rough idle sound (my car has a cam which is bigger than stock).  Even if the car is perfectly tuned, it will still have that "uneven" rough idle because of the cam.

Mushroom_Farmer wrote on Jan 5^th, 2007 at 4:52am:

I'm dying to hear my BB chevy engine fire for the first time.  The cam isn't quite that big, its 270 advertised valve duration (224 @ .050) for both the intake and the exhaust valves.  I expect it to sound great with the nice set of headers I got a good exhaust.

I've attended a number of vintage and modern racing events and have heard F1 cars from the 1960's to today, sports cars from the 1930's to today, etc.  Vintage Ferraris make wonderful noises.  Modern F1 cars make wonderful noises.  Listining to the LeMans winning C5 and C6 Corvettes up close is just glorious.  The biggest suprise for me though is the sound of a race tuned rotary engine.  I've heard it aptly described as a band saw ripping through fiberglass, only maybe a million times louder.  Can't say I have a favorite though, there are simply too many beautiful noises to choose.  Most impressive would have to be the 1960's CanAm cars.  Nothin' quite like 700-1000 horsepower to liven up a room.  And who doesn't love the way a big 'Merikan V8 vibrates your chest, the ground, the hair on your arms.

Chris_F wrote on Jan 5^th, 2007 at 9:41pm:


I loved the sound of the Can-Am cars. MacLaren, Porsche, Ferarri, Lola, Shadow-all throwing everything they had into making the most powerful racers ever built, until the F-1 turbo years. That was the best of racing in North America back then. Those drivers must have had some serious "attachments", to quote Davy Hobbs, to climb in those monsters.  At the height they were getting 1200HP from the injected V8-'s. Porsche had a monster of an engine too. I remember the earth-shaking sound of those machines. In a word-they were Awesome.

Here's the sound that I like.  This is a 1969 Chevy Camaro equipped with a big block (probably a 396...it doesn't actually say).  Anyway, the last 15 or 20 seconds of this video show the car being moved around i a field (probably for a car show).  Anyway, this is the part where you can really hear a built big block sound...and I really like it.  This motor sounds moderately built, probably a 400-450hp street car.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DknV9JujviM

I can tell you straight away there is a huge differance in sounds of a modern F1 car.
My recent trip to Silverstone only confirmed previous thoughts on that one.
The Japanese cars, all of them left a horribly high pitched ringing in your ears as they went by. The Mclarens you could hear a grinding or buzzing sound in the engine as they approached us. Ferrari not being there couldn't tell in person, but you can always here from the cockpit cameras how much deeper their engines sound than the others.
It was much tougher to tell with the V10's. but the V8's its been much easier to tell.