The worst sounding engine. Ever.

NGTD wrote: Subaru's with Equal-length headers sound completely better.

FTFY. I know it has been beaten to death, but the Subaru sounds-like-a-misfire "rumble" is awful! I find the equal-length headers better-sounding, and they work better in N/A form.

I have not read all seven pages of this but for some reason LSX motors just don't sound rite to me. The tone is fine it is the timing that is odd.

ae86andkp61 wrote:

NGTD wrote: Subaru's with Equal-length headers sound completely better.

FTFY. I know it has been beaten to death, but the Subaru sounds-like-a-misfire "rumble" is awful! I find the equal-length headers better-sounding, and they work better in N/A form.

The thing that turns me away from Subarus is they don't sound like they are revving very high. Even with an equal length header, when they run out to 6500 it sounds to me like they're shutting it down after 3000.

Blah. I want the thing to zing up there! I want a crazy banshee shriek. I've HEARD a Subaru do it but it was a EJ33 with cams (apparently so big they had to clearance the valve covers) and a header and they were screaming it north of 8k.

This one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqnuj58lFQI

Knurled wrote:

ae86andkp61 wrote:

NGTD wrote: Subaru's with Equal-length headers sound completely better.

FTFY. I know it has been beaten to death, but the Subaru sounds-like-a-misfire "rumble" is awful! I find the equal-length headers better-sounding, and they work better in N/A form.

The thing that turns me away from Subarus is they don't sound like they are revving very high. Even with an equal length header, when they run out to 6500 it sounds to me like they're shutting it down after 3000. Blah. I want the thing to zing up there! I want a crazy banshee shriek. I've HEARD a Subaru do it but it was a EJ33 with cams (apparently so big they had to clearance the valve covers) and a header and they were screaming it north of 8k. This one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqnuj58lFQI

That sounds amazing, reminds me of this:

Legacy

Oh, hey that's Paul's car.

His other flat-6 rallycross car sounds better

Edit: Found old footage, but I think his car was still a EJ25 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6mJmUUVlAk (bonus: Knurled content at 2:30, before major suspension change. Back then I just had a street ported, naturally aspirated Turbo II engine)

Man that was an awesome racing format. You were running "heads up" against another person, two different start/finish points. And you had to finish stopped in the start box. LOTS of heavy overdriving and locked brakes and stuff. Way too much fun!

I like the sound of the Subaru boxer, provided it has the right exhaust on it. They sound like a broken diesel stick, and they sound like a bubbly fart marathon with the wrong aftermarket exhaust.

I had a pretty loud one on my old 2002 WRX wagon. It was made by a company called Autospeed who specialized in Audi tuning. It was really loud when you got on it, but it sounded powerful and mean. With the fender silencer "snorkus" removed, it was a mess of turbo sounds and boxer noises. I definitely couldn't live with it day to day now, but it did sound better than the cheapo ebay "N1" cat backs a lot of people had.

Another weird one is the GM 3.8 V6. In the Grand National, it sounds wonderful. In the Grand Prix GTP, aka The JuggaLambo, it sounds raspy and broken.

Honorable mention: any truck based V6 with a broken exhaust pipe or bad manifold gasket. They sound like a broken biplane preparing to taxi down a makeshift runway in pursuit of the Red Baron one last time.

Uncork a GN and they mostly sound like vacuum cleaner with a dentist's drill laid on top. In a good way...

GM sixes usually sound weird/bad because of the way they shove one cylinder bank's exhaust into the other bank's manifold. Even on the older longitudinal 231s. Why? Why not? GM did that on Olds and even some SBCs too.

The sad thing is, the only time I ever saw an NSX in the wild, it had some sort of exhaust on it that made it sound almost exactly like a 3.1 Lumina with a half rotted muffler.

In reply to SilverFleet:

My 02 WRX had a Lachute Subaru full turbo back exhaust. It had a cat less up pipe and down pipe. It was really subtle below 2500 rpm, but from 2500 to red line, it had a wonderful growl. I don't think they are common in the US.

Lachute Subaru is located just outside of Montreal.

Harleys.

A lot of V10s sound like tractors but this one I still think is pretty great.

https://youtu.be/vnZVkdzXzFQ?t=66