Looking for a good rapping sound muffler , I want to be heard but not straight pipes.. What do you like ???
I dig glasspaks,but the pipes on my high school truck had thrush mufflers that sounded very good too...hell I don't even know if they still make those as i get my blue streaks locally.
I sell both the Smithy mufflers (glass pack) and the Mellow Tone mufflers (either glass or steel pack - your choice). The glass will generally give a slightly softer sound compared to the steel pack. The Mellow Tones have a unique series of stamped openings for a real nice sound. I stock 22" only in the Smithys, but I stock 17" and 22" (glass and steel) in the Mellow Tones. The link here will take you to the website prices: www.flatheadv8.com
What are these mufflers you speak of? For your ears? I like the fuzzy purple ones but mostly go with my WWII bombers helmet with the flaps pulled down... Honestly though... (and thanks for the insight Killer) Ask your exhaust guy if he can make a nail head sound like a flathead and if he can you'll have no problem having that guy make your car/truck/boat/bus sound like you want it too... Additionally it depends on what you're running, how it's tuned, and what you like... I say, when you hear something you like, chase that car down and find out what they did, what they're running and who did it for them....
Yeah, those Thrush oval "Turbo" style mufflers (I think they're actually copies of the old Turbo Corvair style mufflers) sound good. That's what I have on my '54 Chevy. They're just a few feet behind the headers and sound great. They don't last very long if you drive it a lot because the crimped seams start to rust out from condensation in the bottoms, but they sound good and they're pretty cheap (if they still make them). Glasspacks seem to last forever if you get the "bullet" variety with rounded ends. The Thrush mufflers have a gravelly powerful '70s muscle car hot rod sort of sound. The glasspacks have more of a mellow custom cruiser sort of sound, but you can vary the sound by what diameter glasspacks you use and how long they are. With glasspacks you hear more of the cool little brappy poppy sort of sounds as you decelerate and they sound real cool and not tin-canny sounding. With the Thrush mufflers, they sound good and loud, kind of like open headers with a lot of clatter but quieter. With a lopey cam they sound really mean. The flowmasters to me sound good, but sound kind of too modern sounding for a "traditional" hot rod. They sound too '90s sounding. They have a drone at certain rpms that gets on your nerves after while. I guess most of the loud cars on the road today are using things like Flowmasters or Magnaflows, but back when I was a teenager in the '70s, the cool thing was to have either glasspacks (Smitties) or Thrush "turbos" (turbo corvair style mufflers). At the local muffler shop, if you told them you want some loud mufflers, all they had were the "turbos" or the bullet style "glasspacks", and that's that. Not a million choices like they have now. I remember getting my glasspacks from J.C. Whitney for about $17 or so each and having them hook them to the headers with some short pipes for about $35 labor. The Thrush mufflers were $19.99 each and came with a sticker of of the "Pissed Off Pecker", sort of an angry Woody the Wood Pecker. By the way, where the exhaust exits, has a lot to do with how a car sounds overall. I always thought it sounded good to have it exit through some turndowns right in front of the rear axle. The sound would echo around under the car and just make the car sound extra mean! When you gunned it, big clouds of dust and debris and pebbles would come flying out from under your car.
I was running Smithys on my 54 chevy and liked them but.... I like it much more now that I'm running straight pipes!!!!!!!
Brockman Mellow Tones are the only ones I run on my Kustoms! Sound as good as the original old Smittys' used to.
The Jalopy Journal
