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.

Hagar wrote on Jan 7^th, 2007 at 2:23pm:


hopefully i'll be at this event too, its the one of the events that i'm going to make it to this year,
will be trying to persuade a friend to bring his very rare 125 down to the event aswell (matchless 125 of which he owns two that are in full riding condition) although he'll be in the car and i'll hopefully be on my bike.
might even try and convince a friend of mine to fly down there for the day and fly back 

Woodlouse2002 wrote on Jan 7^th, 2007 at 8:06pm:


Sounds like the engine room on a boat!   And it's the weirdest engine i have ever heard of!

I have some sound clips of the 1967 BRM with the H16 engine (two V8's sharing a common crank).  Impressive sounding engine.

Woodlouse2002 wrote on Jan 8^th, 2007 at 4:35pm:

Don't know if enough melded V8's are made to deserve their own letter.    Yeah, I guess it would look like an "X".  You could probably also call in a W since it's two V's, but they aren't laid out side by side.  Still, an interesting engine that makes wonderful sounds but ultimately not a very effective engine.

Chris_F wrote on Jan 9^th, 2007 at 1:54pm:

I've been educated on this engine since yesterday. Cylinders in a H formation, basically two flattned V8's turned on their sides and bolted together. It had two crankshafts.

Boeing27 wrote on Jan 9^th, 2007 at 2:16pm:

A quick google turned up the following:

http://privat.bluezone.no/jerry/linjer/f1sounds.htm

BTW some of the info is wrong, and don't get the Mantra clips by mistake.  It's another great sounding engine, but it's no BRM.  There are others out there so google should turn up more.

The web page attributes the sound to BRMs earlier 1.5L V16 entry but I've seen a bunch of places where the same sound clip is attributed to the later BRM 3.0L H16.  To me it sounds too deep and throaty to be a 1.5L.

Chris_F wrote on Jan 9^th, 2007 at 6:16pm:

Well, marine diesels that put out 3,100bhp are never going to be small. But the Deltic was about half the size and a lot lighter than the equivilant engine made by Mercedies Benz. Plus it produced more power and had two less cylinders. The merc being a V20. So for what they were they were nice, light and compact. Infact it was so light and compact that when it came to servicing them you simply took it out and put another in it's place while it was done.

Boeing27 wrote on Jan 11^th, 2007 at 8:22pm:

Honda makes some pretty nice sport bikes and the S2000 sounds okay, but I wouldn't put them at the top of my list.  Their McLaren Honda F1 engine was a screamer (at near 1000 horsepower from a 1.5L) but the CR-V?!?!  I had a 1994 Civic, drove a 2000 Preleude and both were pretty pedestrian and I've driven Integra Type R's that sounded pretty decent.  But I wouldn't put any of 'em on the top of my list.  For four cylinders my favorites would probably be in the sport bike relm, although Lotus has some pretty nice sounding fours, the Elan, Elite, and Elise (a Yamaha designed mill) come to mind.  MGBs sound pretty nice too, and Formula Atlantics have a nice sound (IIRC they're running I4 Mazda engines now).