On my '41 Ford I had a pair of Smithy's but turned 'em around backwards for more sound. A little too long at 24" so they were too quiet but running them backwards was perfect!
PDC, JKeesey: Good stuff about "tuning" your mufflers. One guy I was in service with said he would run the garden hose up the exhaust pipes of the family sedan when he was a kid. He was waiting for the guts to rust out so they'd sound like Smittys. He said the stock steel packs didn't sound too bad, once the insides were gone! Now that's innovative poor boy hot rodding !
I have a set of Holley(?) stainless glass packs on my Dodge. Been there for 15 years and the sound hasn't changed, has a little rap at full throttle but no obnoxious drone on the highway.
thrush turbos are back in both a welded type and the crimped steel type . look in summits catalog I liked the sounds of the thrush turbos , but leaning towards a porter style for my 455 Poncho mill to see how it sounds , I know adding different style tips changes the sounds too . I have flat oval megaphones that really sound nice as there is no popping noise , My FIL has a pencil tip on his straight 8 that has a turned in lip and sounds different than his freinds with a slash cut tip of the same dia and mufflers ( walkers)
you had the chambered type exhaust they offered that type on the camaros . they pulled them because they were too loud . those type are still out there remaned by a small shop . big bucks about $150 per tube but they sounded nice .If I can remember the name I will post it we used them on welders that ran at constant speed and they had a nice mellow tone to them . but rev them up from a idle to speed ( 3600 rpm) and they were loud ! the cork screw types almost have the same sound but they drone
Another Porters fan. Spendy compared to Cherry Bombs of my youth. but never get trashy sounding instead of performance sounding.
im running porters on a 302 gmc they have the sound of the days gone buy ,when you get into it ,but if your just cruising they have a nice mellow sound you will not go wrong
For the ultimate nostalgia muffler.... dig a hole 10 feet deep and fill it with rocks. No kidding, I saw a book from 1900 explaining how to install a gas engine powered electrical power plant in your house, farm, or country estate. The generator went in its own little shed. You dug a pit and filled it with rocks for a muffler. The exhaust pipe was made of black iron plumbing pipe and went down into the pit.
I remember them and I also seem to recall you could order them from Sears. They were good, but Cherry Bomb had more street cred. At least in Houston.
Walker built a baffled glass pack, wasn't as loud as a cherrybomb, but looked like one, I drove the cops crazy with it. Here in Wisconsin, the law stated baffled muffler, I'd get stopped and when ocifucker started in with his loud muffler shit I'd hand him the label off the box. He would have to walk away!
The shorty glasspacks I have on my 37 Chevy are getting a little too loud for me now that I have a radio in it,I am going to be on the hunt for some quieter mufflers this winter.
I have a '51 Ford 8BA in my car; I cut the exhaust system out about a year ago and welded the lake pipes to the headers. Probably the best sounding car idling and ripping down the street.
Mario, any chance of posting a video so we can hear your flatty? At 239 cubic inches an 8BA doesn't put out a tremendous amount of noise. I too am going to run straight exhaust on my Shoebox, but all the way out the back. If it's too loud (not likely as I like things loud) I'll try a pair of 6" steel packs.
Muffler sound is totally opinion based for popularity. Way too many variables! Engine compression, length, where in the system to put them. etc.....
I love the title of this thread. Many years ago, I had a couple of friends that ran a muffler shop. Their slogan was "No Muff Too Tuff, We Dive At Five". Their favorite install was dual straight pipes with no mufflers. Loud pipes save lives, they said!
I've grown to appreciate quieter mufflers as I've gotten older. My '51 has dual glass-packs, but my off-topic later model has turbo mufflers. But... back in the day, I liked my cars LOUD! Which leads me to this tale: Back in the early '70s, the Ohio State Highway Patrol let it be known that they weren't going to let any vehicle with Thrush mufflers pass their random safety inspections. Also, they said that they were going to check for exhaust leaks and that tailpipes had to exit outside the car. Now, this was too long ago for me to remember exactly what got them on this exhaust vendetta or even how they passed this information to the public, but I remember hearing about it and being ticked off because I had just put a new set of duals on my daily driver - with Thrush mufflers. So - I drove over to the local speed shop and picked up a can of silver header paint. Dropped the exhaust, cleaned the mufflers with thinner, scuffed them with 600 grit and sprayed them silver. A couple of weeks later, I was headed north on a twisty little state route in south-eastern Ohio. I was enjoying the drive - until I came across two troopers who had a safety checkpoint set up in a dusty little pull-off (perfect for spotting leaky pipes). One cop immediately recognized the unique sound of the Thrush mufflers. The first thing he said to me was that they had heard me "three miles away". He dropped down on one knee and looked under the car. New aluminum-colored mufflers, no leaks and tailpipes ending just past the back bumper. He was one ticked trooper! He stuck the new inspection sticker inside my windshield and could only manage a "Keep it down..." as I left.
I've posted my testing of mufflers several times before. I know several HAMBERS on this board have heard my pipes. There was alot of testing before I settled with my set up. There is not one fits all to this solution. Definately, motor size, compression, volume of air, pipe diameter and length make considerable differences. We all are looking for that "just right" sound. They only problem is, we all want our own signature sound! There are 4 types of sounds. Quiet, mellow, loud and the sound you end up with. Since I wanted a deep mellow rumble at idle and cruise but a loud in you face roar when I got on it, here's what I did. First of all, I have an inline 292 six that has been opened up .040, ported, polished and a 270 cam so it has some extra volume of spark and gas to flow through cleanly. Extra bends, non-matched ports are all interruptions in the flow and resonance of the tone. I placed mandrel casted 3" headers through 2.5: pipes that flow through "twin Corvette side pipe inserts" for mufflers. These are the same mufflers Chevy used in the 1963-67 vettes side pipes and for their motion performance 427's. All they are is a 3" dia. pipe that are crimped every 5-6 inches. Several lenghts can be purchased and mine are 30" long. The crimps muffel the sound when idleling and at cruise but shoot straight through under accerleration. For added deep sound out the back, I have added large Echo Cans that muffel the sound even deeper. This trick was and has been used for a long time and indeed works quite well.
Early 80's my brother inlaw was ticketed for "backwards Thrush". He said it was a city ordinance in a neighboring town. He never went back there.
I put a pair of "Purple Hornie" header mufflers on my Tudor, and when I went for an inspection sticker( at a hot rod friendly garage), I pulled the car in, and the owner (a friend of mine) said "I can't put a sticker on that! It's too quiet!" So I drove home and rammed a piece of re-rod through both mufflers( which greatly improved the tone) and went back."That sounds much better", he said laughing. And it got better with age. Unfortunately, the driver didn't!
Brockman Mellowtones glasspacks. 36" mufflers. 2.5" pipe front to back. 355 V8 with a big cam. <IFRAME height=315 src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qCfglBK77zM" frameBorder=0 width=560 allowfullscreen></IFRAME>
Hi. I talked to the manager of a nearby Midas shop last night at our car club meeting & was asking about what mufflers he had avalible for a new header & dual exhaust set up for my 46 Chevy Coupe and he recomended Thrush for a more mellow tone after I told him I wanted to hear them but not the sound of all the big engine muscle cars. I said that I still wanted to be able to hold a conservation with someone in the car or listen to the radio without having to make it blare. I will be there to get the new exhaust hopefully in a couple of weeks - as soon as I get the engine swap done with the new 235 engine. Jimmie
A lot of the sound that came out of these engines depends on what engine it was. Hands down, nothin' in my mind sounded better than a split six or Y-block Ford. Of course that's just my opinion.
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