[Augusto]

why are the sounds of the typical american V8 engines so different from the sound of a ferrari california V8 engine?

the ferrari V8 is a 90 degree block, 266 cubes, DOHC, EFI, 3.70 bore 3.05 stroke, nothing like if it came out of this world to me.

but the sound it makes is like music, sounds like a ninja bike or something like that, on the other hand the american V8's though nice but they sound like an old F-600 dump truck with a busted muffler.

sure the ferrari revs past 8.000 but at lower r's in the usual american V8 range they still sound like a jap bike with a yoshimura exhaust, at idle they have a sligthty similar kinda rough sound like the american v8's, this leads me to think they have rather hot camshafts, but nothing an american engine couldn't have.

I would love making my beloved american cars sound like a ferrari, could this be possible?

[whyholdback]

You sure about the Ferrari? I don't think all of Ferrari's V8s are 90-degree blocks with 90-degree cranks. I think some are what's called flat-plane.
I doubt the Ferrari has 180-degree headers, because they're a huge hassle that take up a huge amount of space around the engine.
You can dramatically change the sound of the real muscle, which Ferrari can never be, by adding a true X pipe top a true dual exhaust.
But engines aren't for sound. That's not their purpose. The purpose is great output with great BSFC. Efficiency. Pick any new 2012 'vette. Every one of them gives more MPG than any Ferrari of the same HP / acceleration.
Forget engine sound, choose the quietest muffs that actually scavenge. The cops shouldn't hear it when you go to full throttle. If you care what you hear, buy a radio / CD player.

[Augusto]

ferrari's website says its a 90 degree V8

x pipes make them american v8's sound much better, and make more power, I've done lots of them, I own a muffler shop.

hearing the engine's sound is a big part of the fun of driving a performance car, us gearheads love to hear it, and you can tell what engine/brand is just by the sound they make.

there are some unmistakeable sounds, like the harley's for instance.

stereos are for family or daily drivers, true performance cars don't have them.

[ap72]

Part of it is heads and cams. The american v8's (the older ones) had terrible intake and exhaust tracts, everything from the air cleaner to the exhaust tip. Every last thing on a ferrari was designed for a purpose not designed for minimal cost of production. Compare a brand new ls7 to a 10 year old ferrari or porsche and the quality is still worse. BUT american engines have more displacement and lower cost, they can overcome a lot.

[Landshark928]

Cam overlap, duration, firing order and exhaust system make the sound.

My stock Porsche V8 sounded very American when I switched to headers and an X with flowmasters. When I swapped to bigger cams, even more so.

Now I have an american V8 in it and love it.

[Augusto]

I've tried for years making 4 cylinder car engines sound like bikes with no luck, I think the small flywheels of bikes also make them change the pitch very fast and adds to the distinctive sound.

[DoubleVision]

When I used to hang out at the drag strip my favorites on the ears was when a high revver would pull up to the line, tach it to 9500 RPM then side step the clutch. These guys were usually running 302 inch small blocks and they made music all on there own.

[joelster]

The firing order has a lot to do with sound. Crafty guys can manipulate the sound by running specific headers. There's a science to it, and Ferrari's pay close attention to it. Here's a regular old LT1 car with standard firing order 18436572 but with 180 headers.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZTbR6C6Lw

Sounds like it's about 2000rpm higher at every rev.

[RippinRon]

They don't call it engine tuning for nothing. The intake runner length and design as well as the exhaust play a big role in sound.

[Augusto]

Originally Posted by joelster

The firing order has a lot to do with sound. Crafty guys can manipulate the sound by running specific headers. There's a science to it, and Ferrari's pay close attention to it. Here's a regular old LT1 car with standard firing order 18436572 but with 180 headers.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZTbR6C6Lw

Sounds like it's about 2000rpm higher at every rev.

well that vette sure sounds a lot like a ferrari, though a bit lower pitched, but really nice, I wonder how they fitted 180 deg headers in there. I love it..!!

[joelster]

Originally Posted by Augusto

well that vette sure sounds a lot like a ferrari, though a bit lower pitched, but really nice, I wonder how they fitted 180 deg headers in there. I love it..!!

Any exhaust shop "should" be able to handle work like that, especially shops that deal with custom exhaust systems for show-type cars. The trick is to know which cylinders to cross over to the other side to maximize the effect. They usually run the tubes under the oil pan. Plan on spending $1000 minimum.

[lmsport]

The Ferrari use a short stroke, high compression, long duration cam, short intake tract (think Weber IDA), lightweight clutch and flywheel all in a lightweight car. The Ferrari is a race car that happens to have a license plate and can be driven on the street.

[Huskinhano]

Ferrari uses a 180* crank while we use a 90* crank. From what I understand a 180* crank make slightly more power due to more even cylinder scavenging but it a much harder engine to balance and run with less vibration. The 90* crank runs a lot smoother and it better balanced. I read some place about a team that was experimenting with a 180* crank in a SBC and had to cut the testing short because the engine has such bad harmonics. They said with the 180* the engine is very sensitive to bore/stroke ratio, they were running a long stroke and that the engine needs to be really over square. Long stroke won't work.

[oldbogie]

Originally Posted by Augusto

why are the sounds of the typical american V8 engines so different from the sound of a ferrari california V8 engine?

the ferrari V8 is a 90 degree block, 266 cubes, DOHC, EFI, 3.70 bore 3.05 stroke, nothing like if it came out of this world to me.

but the sound it makes is like music, sounds like a ninja bike or something like that, on the other hand the american V8's though nice but they sound like an old F-600 dump truck with a busted muffler.

sure the ferrari revs past 8.000 but at lower r's in the usual american V8 range they still sound like a jap bike with a yoshimura exhaust, at idle they have a sligthty similar kinda rough sound like the american v8's, this leads me to think they have rather hot camshafts, but nothing an american engine couldn't have.

I would love making my beloved american cars sound like a ferrari, could this be possible?

Yes, but expensive; the Ferrari uses a flatplane crankshaft (180 degrees between throws) with a firing order of 1,5,3,7,4,8,2,6. Your Chevy uses a crossplane crank (90degrees between throws) with a firing order of 1,8,4,3,6,5,7,2 or the LS and some modded Gen Is of 1,8,7,2,6,5,4,3.

Flatplane cranks have been tried many times (look up Smokey Yunick for one)
never with the result in power thought to be there and always with more vibration issues to be settled. The whole problem is with a flatplane crank is that it makes a V8 into two inline 4s running on a common crankshaft. This design of a 4 has a lot of difficult to resolve 2nd order imbalances, these are where the moving masses are not in opposing directions and at the same point in a trigonometric sense of position versus degrees of rotation. So these things are harder to balance up. This may be fine for a company that makes about as many engines a year as Chevy does in a day, but it's just to fussy and expensive for GM's, Ford's or Chrysler's rate of production and as far as racing is concerned has never proven to develop the power this configuration's proponents espouse.

You can do this to a Chevy, the crank and camshafts are out there in somebody's scrap pile.

Actually the last time I was on hold for the local Ferrari's parts counter I made the counder guy kind of mad when I told him the engine sounds they play when you're on hold, sounded like a bunch of mad Yamaha's. He became quite indignant and informed me that this was the sound of a V12 winding out. Beats me, still sounds like a bike race through my hearing aids.

Bogie

[406 bug]

Originally Posted by lmsport

The Ferrari use a short stroke, high compression, long duration cam, short intake tract (think Weber IDA), lightweight clutch and flywheel all in a lightweight car. The Ferrari is a race car that happens to have a license plate and can be driven on the street.

Think you nailed it!!!