A sad day in my history was going from open fenderwell headers, to full exhaust on my 57. But I didn’t drive it very far in those days
Froze my ass off all night once sleeping in the dirt at the dry lakes. Finally dozed off around 5am when I suddenly woke up to the sound of an open header flat head powered land speed car.......best alarm clock in the world!!!! Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Chris Casny coupe running a 322 Nailhead with open headers -- to me, this is how a hot rod should sound:
I ran straight pipes all the way out the back a little past the rear bumper, it was a real noisy deal, I added 12" Cherry bombs and it toned it down just enough on this 39 Ford Tub with a SBC. I'm dreaming that it sounds like a flathead now and it kinda does. JW I'm remembering that as kids in the 50's we'd drill a hole about a foot up the pipe so if we got a too loud ticket we'd push a brass pot scrubber up the pipe and stick a cotter pin thru the hole to hold it in to let the Cops listen to it, then when we got home , pull the cotter pin out and stand on the gas and the brass scrubber would shoot out. JW
Drove this with open fenderwell headers for almost 10 yrs. Had a cop pull up next to me once and just gave a thumbs-up. Never got a ticket or warning...just lucky I guess!
Back in the late 70's I had a 413 wedge powered '65 Polara ex-CHP car. Stock when I bought it, that big block Mopar just wasn't loud enough for 16 year old me. So I put some really short glass packs on it and turn downs. It was fine at speed but taking off it was pretty loud. Driving home from HS I got a "loud exhaust" fix it ticket. I put some perforated steel inserts in front of the glass packs to get it "signed off" and it sounded terrible. My buddy's dad was an old hotrodder in the fifties but a bit of a hard ass as a cop. He wouldn't sign it off for me. I don't recall how I got it remedied, but somebody signed the back of the ticket. Been driving muffled ever since. Forty years later, I'm puzzled how all the straight pipe Harleys and late model Mustangs don't get ticketed. My daughter just got ticket for no front license plate, so I know the nit pickers are out there.
Being a public servant, I'm here to tell ta that not all cops are dicks. When someone calls and complains, then they have a job to do. Bout like when some guy rakes his yard and burns the leaves, but it pisses the neighbor off, because they're too lazy to clean up their yard, so they call the fire dept. We pull in and get out of the truck, you can always see the neighbor that complained peeking out their blinds lol, we tell the "offender" that their yard looks great and don't leave it unattended, then we leave there are a lot of cops that hot rod or love fast cars, i mean, come on, you telling me that they don't play around in those pursuit packages when nobody is looking (by the way, those dodge chargers they have now wouldn't touch my Model A in the quarter, at least one specific one couldn't, ask me how i know)
Reminds me of a recent story. It was a Saturday afternoon and I was hauling my bottles and cans to the recycler for some cash, using my Model A pickup to haul the plastic bags of recyclables. As I pulled into the lot I see a black & white following me and pulled up behind me. I'm thinking "oh great, I was probably losing some of my load and now I'm going to get a ticket for littering". Nope. The cop holds a plastic bottle out of his window and offers it to me, "contributing to the effort" he said. Then he got out of his cruiser and walked up to my car and walked around it, and now I'm thinking he's looking to cite me for something, but he just smiled and told me how cool it was, and then proceeded to tell me all about his street machine Camaro, which I didn't care about at all, but I played along like I was all interested and we were just 2 car guys talking about cars. He asked some questions about the truck, and shared what he had done to his car, and then said goodbye to let me get back to my business and he to his. Whew! He never noticed that my registration tags were out of date. I had the new tags at home on my desk, but had never applied them to the plate yet, which I did as soon as I got home!
If you're going to run open exhaust, then the engine needs to have some decent compression and bump stick. Otherwise your engine sounds a lot like a B model John Deere or some other small garden tractor.
IMO, a cammed up, hi compression, 1000 RPM idle thru open headers sounds killer, OTOH, a common street motor idling at 600 thru open exhausts reminds me of a 9N Ford needing a muffler, No thank you. I have electric cutouts, love them.
Stock engines sound awful with open exhaust. Race engines sound great with open exhaust. I prefer a straight through muffler on any street car. I posted in the Hamber's you'd like to meet thread "any of them because I enjoy like minded people" but I'm glad some of these guys aren't my neighbor. Got a douche bag across the street that calls the cops every July 4th.
I have lakes style pipes on my Hot Rod, I installed Speedway inserts up each pipe and fasten with 2 self tap screws worked great. I have to drive down Main Street in my town to go see my friends, no problem, in fact on the way back I drive right by the Police Station. Straight piped Harleys are a lot louder and annoying than my car.
The coolest sound I've ever heard on way to a car show we were at a rest stop . I said to my buddy listen something loud is coming our way . Here comes six 40 Willys with big blocks and all had blowers running in staggered formation at about 90 mph the sound was awesome never heard a sound like that again ! Almost like the sound of a B-17 bomber doing a flyover at a air show .
Old enough to know better, but young enough not to give a rats ass. Wait till im 70 ..... lol.... insurance rates whaaaaaat.....
That is some annoying shit. Those ridiculous sound systems are much more irritating than loud pipes. A hot rod with a system like that isn't a hot rod. MORE LIKE A HOT MESS. What can I add to my ride that will make it slower and rattle it self to pieces. I know, how about several hundred pounds of equipment and some massive subs.
Todd553, one of my favorites on the H.A.M.B. for sure! Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
1958-59 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FIpG8ey5ek Hello, When my brother got his new 58 black Impala, he went to Lion’s Dragstrip to see what it could do in the timing and speed arenas. He found out several things that made him want to get faster and better. One: You can race in the time trials with open exhausts. But, once the eliminations came into play, everything had to be capped up. We knew that headers were illegal, so most everyone added downward exhaust tubes with removable flanges. Some people did not cut out the flange to make capping and uncapping easier, and to use wing nuts instead of regular hex nuts. Two: The sound of open down exhaust pipes made everything sound excellent, but talking inside of the car was nearly impossible, even with the windows rolled up. I used to meet my brother at the timing slip area of the orange tower and we would drive back to our portion of the pits. The 348 motor was loud. But, it was the dragstrip and was an acceptable thing. Three: With the stock Impala mufflers, when the down tubes were capped up, you could hear the motor wind up and learned the shift points by sound and not look at the small tach we had placed under the lip of the dash. The stock mufflers made it pleasant to cruise around the local scene when not at Lion’s Dragstrip racing. Four: We decided that we needed an edge in the stock car racing. My brother had won several trophies, but we thought that straight through mufflers would make it quicker and give it more speed in the top end. Our friend in Los Angeles had gotten his hands on some factory replacement mufflers from a Chevy dealer and gave us a call. When we arrived in L.A. to pick them up, the mufflers were tubular and straight through. There was no offset bend in the flow. He said they were Corvette factory mufflers in any Chevy dealers parts department and would be deemed legal for all stock car racing classes. Jnaki They were legal for the class and it did make the Impala a little faster, with less restriction in the flow of the exhausts. The several weeks we had the tubular mufflers only, we did not have to open the exhaust cut outs. These mufflers were very loud and the rumble of the 348 idle was enough to turn many heads at our local drive-in restaurant parking lot places. But, without the full rear muffler pipe exit system, it was too noisy for daily driving. Since the local cruising area was so close to the "dead of night" (pun intended) Cherry Avenue Drags location, a couple of full-on acceleration runs were mandatory. It was like being at Lions Dragstrip during those timing runs. In the short time we had those mufflers only, we learned to keep the idle at a certain rpm and that made the noise much less. it worked as a cruising police car pulled up next to us and just smiled... no loud exhaust tickets, this time. One thing we knew was that the new mufflers had to have the full rear exhaust pipes, otherwise, the tubular mufflers only would have raised questions by the tech inspectors. With the full rear piping system with dual exhaust tips under the bumper, the sound was not that much louder at idle. Louder, yes, but not enough to arouse any suspicion. There was no need to open the exhaust down tube outlets for any reason. YRMV
In my youth I worked pro sound reinforcement for the biggest rock bands at the biggest venues in the midwest. Lots of extreme dbs. Still, when my lakester headers have the baffles pulled out I feel every single concussion blast against my eardrums and it friggin hurts like hell and sets off all the car alarms around me. So nope that doesn't happen and I like my simple baffles that are still loud but not obnoxious just fine thank you.
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