[CometCyclone]

I was watching that old Henry Fonda movie "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry", and during the chase scene, they switched over to a lime green '69 440 Charger from the full sized blue Chevy Biscayne or whatever it was they were driving before, and you could clearly hear the exhaust note, and it reminded me of muscle cars and hot rods from the 70's when I was REALLY young, to the 80's when I was in my late teens to early 20's.

That '69 Charger sounded good....

I can remember glass packs, Cherry bombs and Thrush mufflers among others, and most of them sounded REALLY good back then. I had a couple cars with 289's and 302's that sounded bad-*****, and my roomate in 1991 had a hot-rodded '64 Chevy II Nova with a 400+ hp 350, and it sounded awesome, especially at 4000-6500 rpm's! Thats just to name a few.

But starting in the mid 90's or so, there were newer high performance exhaust companies making new, different mufflers, and I dont think they sound anywhere near as good as they used to back in the day...

For instance, I was walking out of our local semi-rural grocery store the other day, and I was somewhat amazed to see an orange Hemi Cuda ride by. It had the big Hemi decal on the rear fenders, and as he drove out of the parking lot and hit the street, he got on it a little. He lit em up a little in 1st gear, and chirped the next 2 manual gears.

But....... It didnt sound all that good. I'm not saying that the engine wasnt running right, I'm saying that the exhaust wasn't 'sounding' right.... Compared to the exhaust note from the 440 '69 Charger in "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry", the Charger sounded a lot better......

I think a lot of the new mufflers have an inferior hollow sound to them. I know about right now someone's probably thinking "Hmm... this guy does realize that mufflers ARE hollow doesn't he?" It's hard to describe an exhaust sound, but 'hollow' is the best word I can think of to describe it.

What's your opinion on the current state of exhaust notes versus the old days?

[DanielC]

Almost all movie "Hot Rod" sounds are dubbed in long after the film was shot. Ever hear tires squealing, in the dirt, in movies?

[lt1silverhawk]

Originally Posted by DanielC

Almost all movie "Hot Rod" sounds are dubbed in long after the film was shot. Ever hear tires squealing, in the dirt, in movies?

So true, especially older movies. I was having a Dirty Harry and Police Academy marathon this past weekend and the unnecessary tire-squeals are quite obvious.

[poncho62]

They had some pretty crappy sounding mufflers back then too......and lots of header and exhaust leaks....

[CometCyclone]

Originally Posted by DanielC

Almost all movie "Hot Rod" sounds are dubbed in long after the film was shot. Ever hear tires squealing, in the dirt, in movies?

Yeah, but even if it was dubbed in, they had to get the 'exhaust soundtrack' from some other car that existed around that same timeframe in 1974, and that car sounded pretty darn good!

[CometCyclone]

Originally Posted by poncho62

They had some pretty crappy sounding mufflers back then too......and lots of header and exhaust leaks....

Oh yeah, I've seen and heard my fair share of exhaust leaks both then and now, and they sound terrible, but I gotta tell ya, I still think that an American V-8 with an exhaust leak sounds less terrible than a Japanese 4 cylinder with an exhaust leak!

[matts37chev]

I just remeber the "town clown" cop cars in my small town growing up
they would step on the gas and their cars sounded more like tea pots then cars