April 14, 2015 • 42 mins
Every driver knows that the sound of a car is an irreplaceable, unique part of the ride - part of its fingerprint, perhaps. But if that's the case, then why are so many manufacturers installing synthesized exhaust sounds?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot com. I'm welcome
to car stuff on Scott and on Ben Ben. Today's
topic is going to be polarizing no matter what. Oh yeah, definitely.
So this is all about, um, this is all about
true exhaust sound versus the newer way to do things,
(00:25):
which is a digital or a synthesized exhaust sound that
is uh, in a way false in other ways it's true. Um,
it gets a little bit complicated. We'll we'll describe the
different ways different manufacturers do it. But I think that
people have a strong opinion about this one way or
the other. I, on the other hand, have recently been
swayed in this. Really. Yes, I'm I'm a little bit
(00:48):
surprised because I know that you and I both started
out tremendously skeptical of this digital exhaust or fake exhaust
because it just seems at first glance or at first listen,
it just seems like a cosmetic, ornamental thing, you know.
And I don't know about you, man, but when I
(01:08):
started out looking at this issue, I was orthodox exhaust
all the way. That's all I want. Yeah, Well, same here,
and I have been reading about this more and more,
and I hope that you know, at the end of
this that some people that were kind of the way
that I was, that said, there's no way that shouldn't happen.
We don't really need digital or synthesized exhaust sounds, you know,
(01:30):
piped into the cabin for us to uh, you know,
artificially hear what the engine sounds like. Um, it should
just be natural. It should just be the way the
car sounds. Is the way the car sounds. And you
can tamper with the exhaust tubing the system itself or fine,
but we don't need this, uh, this digital representation of
what the engine should sound like. It seems like it's
faking it in a way. But but I think that
(01:51):
as we talk about this today, I hope that there
are some listeners out there that that will be swayed
by this. We will that will say, I kind of
understand what he's staying. Now. I understand why he may
think that in some cases, and I don't say at all,
I think in some cases that it's say, it's a
valid thing to to include in a vehicle, a new vehicle. Yeah,
I'm with you there, and I that's that's exactly where
(02:13):
I landed on it to Scott. So let's let's set
the stage first by talking about how important the engine
noise of a car or any vehicle actually is. It's
a fingerprint, you know, it's it's a it's a signature
of that specific vehicle. And of course, uh, those of
you out there who are familiar with listening to engine noises,
(02:36):
you know, it's kind of like identifying a bird call
or something. You can tell if that's a Harley coming
your way. Right, we have a podcast just on the
potato potato Harley noise. Yeah, but what if you could
get that exact sound, and I mean identical sound out
of you know, whatever car you drive. I mean whether
it's a Honda Civic or if it's a you know,
(02:58):
Monty Carlo. I'm talking about maybe more than like new
cars instead of adding it to an older car obviously,
But but if you could get that that sound out
of it, would you do that? I mean, that's it.
That's in a way that sounds like that's cheating to me.
There's there's a there's a there's a line of fine
line here, I think between are you cheating something or
are you just enhancing something. Yeah, I think that's fair
(03:21):
for me personally. Does seem dishonest in a way to
to put a car sound or an engine sound that
is not from your vehicle on a on a digital
recorder of some sort and have it emit the same
through the same way that a horn system would admit.
But with that being said, okay, I just have to
(03:42):
say it. In some cases, to me, it's kind of
like for Genius signature. Okay, I get that. I understand
what you're saying, and it would be it would be
that way if you did take that that Harley sound
and you put it into let's say a Ford Focus, Right,
I understand, I understand that. But let's say that you
have a Ford Focus and you enhance the sound that
Afford focus engine naturally makes. But because your car has
(04:04):
been uh tuned, well not that tuned, I guess, but
um well, maybe tuned is the right way to say it,
but it's been quieted in the interior so that you know,
it provides a more pleasant ride when you're on the highway.
You don't hear all the road noise, that tire noise,
all that stuff, and the horns and you know, whatever
that's happening outside. Um, say, you take that that engine
sound that it naturally makes, and you enhance it and
(04:25):
then you allow it to be heard inside and sometimes
only when you want it to be heard. Is there
anything wrong with that? I mean it seems a little
bit like cheating kind of but but it's it's again,
it's more of an enhancement than it is an actual
uh you know, like um forgery. It's not really a forgery.
Like you said, It's not like you're trying to make
(04:46):
it sound like a Formula one car when it's not
a Formula one car you're trying to make You're just
trying to enhance that that Ford focused sound in the
Ford focus so that the person who's driving it gets
the experience that they would have had had the interior
not been um, you know, soundproof. Right. You know, that's
a great That's a great point, Scott, because one of
the things that really stayed with me a while back
(05:10):
for for a different things here at how stuff works.
I was talking with a chef, Kristen Conger, and I, um,
Kristen from stuff mom never told you. She and I
do a food show called food Stuff and this this
chef said something that really impressed me. He said, now,
you cook with all your senses, and a lot of
people forget that when they're cooking. And I think there's
(05:32):
a great comparison here with driving, because we drive with
all of our senses. Right, You smell if something is burning,
you can feel the give or the resistance of a break, right,
and you can feel when the engine struggling. So hearing
the engine is is a huge part of driving as well. Right,
(05:53):
So it makes sense to me from that perspective, if
we if we have a car with a um with
a newer drive train or power train, especially than these
these things are moving in a in a quieter direction.
So it is possible that we're losing valuable information as drivers.
(06:13):
If if if the engine, if we can't hear the
engine telling us what's going on with it, right, then
we're losing some of the information that could help us
be better car owners. Oh, I agree. I mean you're
right about the all using all the senses. By the way,
how many times have you gone out for a drive
and you just leave the window down and the radio
(06:34):
off and you just like to hear the road noise.
You'd like to hear the wind. You like to feel
the wind um, you like to you like to hear
the engine, you like to hear the exhaust. I mean,
I don't know, if your car has a particularly loud
exhausted probably has a quieter exhaust for a better ride.
It does have, it does have a quieter exhaust. Also,
me and the Monte Carlo have have been through a lot,
so I drive with the radio off, the windows down,
(06:56):
or sometimes just idle with the you know, with the
hood up so I can go back and forth and
look to make sure everything's working sure. And there's been
plenty of times that. I mean, I've driven cars that
have just what I think is amazing sounding exhaust. And
I really enjoy when you get out in the country,
in the country somewhere and you can really just kind
of let it go a little bit, yeah exactly, and
(07:17):
you know, maybe hold the gears a little bit longer
than you should, and you know, it's just it's it's
it's a lot of fun. It can be a lot
of fun to listen to your own car. And you know,
a lot of people really enjoy that, particularly owners of
certain types of cars. I mean, let's talk about how
different manufacturers are already doing this because I found an
article here from UM two twelve that explains the different systems.
(07:39):
And I know it's two thousand twelve, so I get
it's a little bit old, but it tells you about
the systems that the manufacturers were using even back then,
and they still are. It's just they've been enhanced for
new models. So some of these models that they mentioned here,
I'll try to just skip over that stuff, UM, because
they're talking about models that will be coming out in
that are already here, UM, not up to date. But
(07:59):
we'll talk about MW, Lexus, Ford, Volkswagen, even Porsche. And
I know there's others out there that are doing this
as well. There's there's more than just the you know,
the five that I mentioned here, but let's just take
them in that order, how about. All right? So here's
what it says about BMW system to give the driver
a better field for the engine and exterior recording. The
M five five motor plays through the car stereo system.
(08:23):
Now this is weird. This is a precise sample of
the engine that is determined by the engine load and rpm,
you know, whatever. It matches what's going on. It's an
electronically controlled system that plays through the car stereo system.
And now some of the real engine notes still come
into the driver, you know, to the driver through you know,
the normal way, like through the windows, you know, through
(08:44):
the installation in the front and everything. Some of it
still makes it through, but the recording is considered more
of like a background track. And BMW this says the
setup helps to allow the driver to be able to
shift at the right points and to reduce the chances
of them bumping the red limited when you know they're
up at the top rpm range. Um. So it gives
(09:04):
them an an oral Q. I guess um A U
R A L y um. Right I just spelled that, right,
I hope we did. But it gives them a queue
that tells them like when to shift and uh. And
you know, it gives them a feel for how the
engine is operating, even though they're in a really comfy interior,
because this thing is well insulated from the road noise. Right, yeah,
(09:24):
and in five has a beast of an engine, right,
it's got that turbocharged V eight right, five sixty horsepower.
Nothing to sneeze at. But because as you were saying,
the because of the soundproofing design. You might be surprised
that what you hear on the outside is not what
you hear once you're inside the vehicle. They call this specifically,
(09:49):
I think their proprietary name for it is the active
sound design System. Is that correct? Very good? I don't
think that's right. I mean it sounds it sounds right,
and uh, it's It's strange because this this system, since
it the emphasis here is on an active since it
is giving you a different noise, as you said, dependent
(10:10):
upon our PM and dependent upon a couple of other factors.
It really is sort of just an indicator of how
the engine is performing, which which I think is an
honest thing to me. It's like another dash display almost.
Oh yeah, I think you're right. And I kind of
just say one thing here. I'm kind of following along
(10:32):
in this article from Car and Driver, I mentioned the
years in from April two twelve, and the the article
title is called Faking It Engine Sound Enhancement explained. If
you want to look this up, because it's a pretty
good chart here that shows I believe the Porsche Panamera.
I can't quite tell which one that is. I think
that's it, but it'll describe how some of these different
systems work. Now let's move on to the Lexus system.
(10:54):
And when we say Lexus, now you think of a
quiet ride, comfortable, you know, luxury car. Right. Well, we're
talking about the Lexus l f A, which is the
supercar alright, so obviously the engine sound is gonna be
important to Lexus lf A owners versus somebody who's driving
around Alexis Sadan. This is a four thousand dollar car
that they were talking about. It's well, it's also well insulated, yeah,
(11:17):
V ten. And the thing about that V ten is
that the sound that they wanted from this was they
wanted like an F one inspired sound, so Formula one racing.
They want that kind of sound out of the engine.
So here's what Lexus does, uh. You know, when they
launched the the l f A, the company wanted drivers
to experience the full range of the V ten you know,
(11:37):
I meaning how it sounded. And to get this, Lexus
contracted Yamaha. Now not Yamaha, you know who makes the
motorcycles and all that we're talking about, Yamaha that creates
the sound, I mean the the Advanced Sound Technologies arm
of Yamaha. So like you know, Yamaha keyboards that you
would see at the mall. You know, someone playing those
(11:58):
uh the demo models at the mall. You know what,
I'm talking to him, right, Okay. So what they did
was is they they tuned the l F a's cabin
specifically for the driver. It treated the engine um as
a sound generator, and then develop components to direct all
of that V ten sounds coming out of you know,
from underneath the hood, all all straight to the driver,
(12:18):
like a way to direct the noise into the driver
at certain points. You know, So if they really get
on the on the gas um, it's going to increase
the noise that comes through that sound generation device. Yeah.
It's it's kind of similar to how in a movie
theater environment, the sound engineers there will pick like pick
(12:39):
a different spot in the theater and tune the sound
to direct it that way. Yeah. Sure, Yeah, that's exactly
what it was. It was tuning the sound to the
cabin of that specific vehicle. And you know, when you're
developing a car that's worth four thousand dollars, you know,
M s r P of that, it probably costs several
you know, I don't know about how many million tens
of millions of dollars to develop. Probably, Um, you're course
(12:59):
going to try to make things like that exactly right,
because you don't want to be a flop when it
when it when it launches and people say, well, it's great,
it's got this V ten but I can't hear it, right, Yeah,
and I know that so far we've been talking about
some higher end vehicles, right, but this isn't just for
supercars and top end luxury. No, no, no. The next
one on the list is Forward. And you wouldn't really
(13:21):
expect maybe Ford to be involved in this because so
far we've been talking about higher end models. But Ford
has installed a resonator pipe between the Mustang g T
s V eight and it's firewall, So they're clearly trying
to get the noise from the engine into the cabin through. Ah.
And I don't want to stay a week point. I
don't mean that at all, but it's the closest point
to the driver and the passengers into the cabin. It's
(13:41):
the easiest way to get the sound in is through
that firewall. Um, now they've got a different model. I
guess that that takes us seat another step right, right, Yeah,
the Boss three oh two adds a second pair of
exhaust pipes and they're tucked right behind the rocker panels.
So if you own this, you can remove these restricts
your plates just upstream of the side exits and that
(14:03):
will open up the exhaust. So if you want noise,
oh brother, oh yeah, you know what. There's another article
from Car and Driver that that explains exactly how you
can unplug your Boss Mustang. So uh, it's from two
thousand eleven and the title is the Boss Unplugged And
if you if you search for that, that's a funny title.
I know, through Springsteen, right, exactly right, But but it
(14:26):
does tell you how to unplug this. And what's funny
is that when you look through this, there's like a
second set of pipes under there. So if you ever
look underneath A three or two, a Boss three or
two rather, you'll see a lot of extra exhaust pipes
going on underneath there. And the thing is that there's
like this outlet where um additional eng and I'm gonna
describe this incorrectly, but a series of valves opens and
(14:47):
closes and allows the exhaust to free flow out one
way or the other. And if if you know where
this piece is, you can take off six bolts and
remove these these restrictor plates. These restrictor plates are incredib
of boll. I mean when you open the pipe up, uh,
you know what the restrictorr plate looks like. It's just
a flat plate with a tiny hole cut in it. Well,
I think that this this pin they call it a
(15:08):
pinhole restrictor. I think it's something like seven sixteenths of
an of an inch is all that it's allowing through there.
I mean we're talking like a I don't know, I'm
gonna guess a two and a half inch pipe. Yeah,
And and that that hole is even a little bit smaller.
It's like five six five sixteenth, it's a five sixteenth
inch hole instead of having that full two and a
half inches or whatever that is two and a quarter inches. Um.
(15:29):
So you can imagine when you remove that plate, what
the sound is like coming through there, and how much
more exhaust is allowed to flow through. You can hear
the difference. I mean you can also search for you know, uh,
you know BOSS three or two plugged versus unplugged sound
and stuff like that. It'll come up. You'll be able
to find it, but it's the difference is dramatic. It
turns it into like a It sounds like a race car. Now. Also,
(15:51):
there is a warning there, a little bit of legal
business that you and I have to do, Scott, doing
this may void your warranty. Yeah, I guess I. I
think it would probably be worth it. And it just
depends on which want. You know what I would do it?
I don't. I mean, it's not gonna I. I see
how like they have to say, doing this might void
(16:12):
your warranty, but I don't see how it could be damaged. Okay,
let me tell you this. All it takes is about
ten seconds of listening to this thing unplugged to change
their mind because it sounds amazing. It really does. It's
pretty incredible. So let's move on to the next one.
That was that's a kind of a one off example, right,
all right, So let's move on to Volkswagen. How Volkswagen
(16:33):
handles this and alright, so here's what happened with Volkswagen. Previously,
they used a resonator tube similar to the one that
the Mustang used, but they only used it in their
G T I model, and then they switched to a
new system called this sound actor Yeah name, I do
like the name, the sound actor system, right. So the
system is a lot like the M fives and that
the audio file is stored in the cars computer and
(16:55):
then played during certain throttle applications. So again it's throttle dependent. Um,
you know, ramps up with a throttle. And Okay, the
where the place that this noise comes from is it
comes from under the hood through a dedicated speaker that's
located near the engine's throttle body, right, and that's all
that speaker does, right. Isn't that interesting though? A speaker
(17:15):
under the hood. That's so strange that they would do this.
Now it's not just this one. It's not just the
g T I anymore. Either. There's several models that use this. Yeah,
there's the g L I and the Beetle Turbo as well. Yeah,
and I would I would guess I'm gonna I'm gonna
guess that there's gonna be maybe even more vehicles in
the line that are using this now at this point,
now that we're three years down. So again, the sound
(17:37):
actor system and if you want to try to, you know,
locate that thing and see it, you know, go to
a VW dealer and just poke around under the hood
and see if you can locate it. I think that'd
be kind of cool, look for all right. Um, Plus,
you can go in and soundly like you know what
you're doing. You go, oh, the sound actor, yeah, and
I'm like, what are you talking about? I have no idea. Uh.
So there's another one here too, which is the diagram
(17:59):
at the at the very top of this article. We
at house up Works predictably love a cutaway that shows
you the different systems of a vehicle or a piece
of technology. Porsche has something they call the sound Symposer. Uh.
This was on the nine eleven and the Panama GTS.
(18:20):
It's I don't know, Scott, I would say, it's kind
of like the M five. Yeah, I guess so it's.
But it's also like the it's also similar to the
Volkswagen and that the that it amplifies the intake noise.
So I don't know's it's kind of a mix of both.
I guess, um. But it says that, you know, the
reason that they put this on the nine eleven is
(18:40):
because as the and they say it this way, they say,
as the as the needs of the owners has has
grown you know, as the as the the age, I guess,
so the people that are typical to buy something like
that have grown because we're talking about cars now that
are a hundred and forty hundred sixty dollars you know,
when you get to the top end turbo levels even
more in some cases not really your first car out
(19:01):
of high school, know exactly right. But one one need
that the older drivers seem to like is that you
can have quiet cruising when you want it um and
in a in an older portion that wasn't always possible.
So now you know, they've again, as we said many times,
they've insulated the cabin. They've made it a lot more comfortable,
it's more of a and again we were talking about
(19:22):
this blurred line between luxury car sports car, and this
is part of that, right, This is one of the
downsides I guess for the people that want the sports
car side. And they make a note here that one
thing in particular is loud. Wide low profile rubber tires
just make a super loud noise when you're cruising along
it let's say eighty miles per hour on the highway.
I mean they're they're very, very loud, and so they
(19:43):
use a lot of UM, a lot of sound dampening, UH,
to get rid of that kind of sound. And what happened.
What happens is then it it takes away the engine
sound as well, you know, the exhaust sound. So they
had a problem with that, right because a lot of
people like that sound. So what they want to do
is amplify that particular part that they want to come in,
but keep out the rest. Of course, she uses what
they call in UM an acoustic channel for for this UM,
(20:07):
this sound symposers system, and it consists of a tube
that houses a diaphragm and a valve and you can
switch that on and off depending on whether you want
quiet cruising or if you want to hear the engine howl.
And at this point, blas and gentlemen, you might be saying,
I might be saying, well, this is not the real noise.
(20:29):
I don't like it. UH. Clearly, not all of these
sound systems are created equally. Some, like the BMW or plane,
prerecorded noises in response to signals from the engine and
the CPU. Others are using purely mechanical means to allow
you to have some control over the noise that you hear.
(20:49):
As a driver. But there's another thing here. We've talked
we've talked about the the cosmetic or aesthetic aspects, right
when we've talked about the the manage of being able
to hear your car's performance. But I advanced to you
that as power trains continue to grow quieter, there's a
safety aspect here. Safety not just on the interior of
(21:13):
the car, but in the exterior. I have a little
bit of a news story for you, all right, So recently,
and this story comes to us, um just a few
days ago as we record this. This was at the
end of March in David Crosby accidentally hit a jogger
with his Tesla. David Crosby David Cross musician, Yeah, also
(21:35):
apparently drives the Tesla. M So uh David Crosby who
also uh surprisingly drives the Tesla in my opinion, uh,
he struck a jogger when he was driving near his
home which is around the Santa Barbara area. The driver
is the driver is alive, not life threatening injuries. But
(21:57):
this report got me thinking. And this was actually I
was talking about this episode with our bosses Brian and
Jason just before we went into record, and they told
me about this, So this is what it got me
thinking about, Scott. Would would there ever be a point
where electric vehicles being so quiet in comparison to regular uh,
(22:20):
I see vehicles. What would there be a point where
as a safety thing, we would need the vehicle to
make some noise. They've talked about this in the past
day first city driving, particularly because a lot of people
just don't pay as much attention when they step off
the curb as they should. And it's I think it's
happened many times already. Yeah, David Crosby is not the
(22:41):
first person. No, no, absolutely not. And you know it's
just that they're just so silent when they approach. And
you can you can test this for yourself in a
parking lot if you see, you know, maybe a Prius
or something that's under five miles per hour, or if
you do happen to see a tesla, you can you
can listen to it as it goes by and you
can hear the tires rolling. It depends on the surface.
I guess that you're right. But for the most part
(23:02):
they're pretty silent, and they could be uh, it could
be a problem, I guess if you were you know,
not paying if if both parties aren't really paying attention.
You know, you don't see someone stuff off the curb.
They're not really listening for anything. You would think they
would see a four thousand pound car headed their way.
But you know, things happening, sure, and you know there
could also be implement weather things that would reduce visibility, etcetera.
(23:24):
But it's funny because this episode made me think of
one time my parents bought a hybrid and my father
in particular was not wild about how quiet it would
be at a stoplight. Instaid I keep thinking, it's just
turned off, Well, was it switched off? Maybe had the
the automatic on off right, right? But I think for
(23:47):
him it was just the just the lack of noise
he's disturbing. It is troubling. I mean, it makes you
think that there's something wrong. I mean, I know we've
talked about several of these issues already, and we did
say something about manufacturers considering adding that option if you
wanted to. Its almost like a switch, like you could
flip on a switch and you could operate in a
mode that would allow some type of sound to come
(24:08):
from the outside, so it's broadcast outside of the vehicle
and that's oh, that's another angle. You know what we
before I even mentioned this other thing that I want
to get so I don't forget it, and it may
come up at the end of this I don't know,
but they are talking about amplifying sound outside the vehicles
as well, not just inside for the driver, but the
sound that people hear outside. So let's get onto the
(24:30):
next thing here. But one other little item that I
wanted to mention here was a something we've talked about
on this podcast before and I think it was in
maybe accessories or something like that, but the something called
the sound raiser, and the sound raiser is that device
you plug into your your power outlet, which was to
be the cigarette lighter, cigar lighter or whatever, yeah, a
(24:51):
long time ago, and um, you plug it in. You
you find a free F FM frequency on your car
stereo and you set it to the same frequency and
then you do this little matching set up and then
suddenly that little you know, four banger engine in your
car sounds like a V eight or a V ten
or it sounds like um, the specifically the the Lexus
(25:14):
l F a V ten or it could sound like,
you know, not V twelve engine. You know, they've got
different models. I think they have four different models, but
it's about forty five bucks up to about fifty five bucks.
It's a cool little thing. I've noticed something ben as
like as I go through the site, because there's there's
three retail outlets in the United States that sell these
that's it. Um there's well, they're sold all around the world,
(25:36):
but in the United States there's just three outlets, and
each one of those three outlets, UM I checked for
specifically the V eight sound because to me, I've listened
to all these know audio clips, the V eight sound
is that the coolest one, and in my opinion, and
every single one of those places it's sold out. That's
all three of those places. So clearly that's clearly that's
(25:57):
a favorite among the people here in the United States.
They want that V eight sound and it's sold out
through like the next two months or something. So even
if you order one now you have to wait like
three months to get one. But it's a cool thing.
So look up sound Racer if you want to get
a good chuckle. And who knows, maybe that's a Christmas
gift or something coming up, because it is a really
cool thing. If somebody really likes the sound of engines,
(26:17):
it would be so fun to do that. And they said,
you know a lot of people will report when they
put this in and they kind of fool their friends
with it because they put it, they haven't installed. I
let their friend get in the car, and then let's
say here, I think one story. I read the guys
in like a Mini Cooper or something, and uh, you know,
he turned the engine on. Of course that here here's
this blur blur blurb, sound like a like a V
eight idling and then they take off and they said
(26:39):
they couldn't stop laughing the whole time. It's just so
much fun to drive like that. You know. I like
the idea of Scott and as we always say, teach
his own. If it's your car, do what you want.
But I personally would be continually irritated that I didn't
really have that engine. I guess so. But you know what,
if you're driving like a snappy little car, I mean
something that's sporty and quick, you know, because like some
(26:59):
of these let's say a hot Hatch, but it but
it doesn't necessarily have a fantastic engine sound or anything, right,
and you put this in there, and you drive something
that that is uh, you know, spirited. I guess something
that's fun to drive, something that handles real crisp and everything.
Pair that with the V eight sound how cool because
it matches exactly. It's not just like an audio track
that that continually runs at a certain speed. No, no,
(27:22):
it's it's matched your engine revs. So it would sound
like it would sound like you're driving a V eight.
It would be really cool to do. I think. I
know it's fooling yourself. I get it. I get that.
And no one else outside can hear that, so they
probably wondering why you're you're having so much fun driving
this uh this, you know, little hatchback whatever. All right,
all right, let's move on past this. Now this may
(27:42):
be the thing that changes our listeners minds, because it
it changed my mind. And this is uh, this is
something that this this uh, this guy from Auto Week,
his name is Bradford Warnie. Uh. This is a recent
article March of and he was talking with a friend
of his or you know, sitting in a vehicle with
a friend of his um who works for a company
called Farisia. Now Farisia is a huge automotive parts manufacturer.
(28:06):
They're the sixth largest parts manufacturer in the world. It's
a really big place, right and they're experimenting with um
you know, these digitally enhanced these synthetic sounds for engines,
and so he was kind of the person to talk
to this guy. His name is Andrew, the guy that
he was talking to, and he's an exhaust engineer. And
they were in the in the seat of a BMW
(28:28):
sedan and he had an iPad with him with a
touch screen and he had you know, one ft on
the accelerator pedal, and he showed the author how the
exhaust sounds could be generated, you know, in the future,
you know, because he said, okay, here's what it sounds
like now, and he rebbed it, and you know, it's
the two leader four cylinder engine seated, you know, sounds
just like a two leader four cylinder engine. But then
(28:49):
he touches the iPad screen and the engine sounds instantly
in the cabin, instantly sounds like he's driving a V
six Maseratio. That's what it sounds like. So no, he
touches it again and it sounds like a BMW M
three with a V eight and he touches it again
and it sounds like a five leader Mustang V eight,
which you and I think we can all picture that side.
(29:11):
But that sounds coming out of a two leader BMW
engine from So it's that easy. I mean, it's that
simple for him to change between those three or four
different sounds with an iPad or rather with an iPad,
and um, the thing is that one other time he
touched it one more time and it all the sound
went away, like it was super quiet. So he was
(29:33):
doing he was employing, uh, sound canceling technology at that point,
kind of like what we have in near the high
end headphones. Sure, very similar to that. So I know
that this is a polarizing idea, but he's saying that
the modern power trains, as you mentioned Ben, you know,
a lot of these are are using turbo chargers and
cylinder deactivation and engine down speeding and all these multi
(29:55):
speed transmissions that have you know, eight nine forward gears
to make things a quieter inside the cabin. And you know,
it's like I said, it's great for mileage, it's great
for um, you know, of course paying less for fuel.
It's great for sound dampening. Of course, it makes everything
a lot quieter. But what it does is it it
makes engines a lot less Um. Obviously they're a lot
(30:16):
less sexy. They don't sound like the engines of the
past do so, so we're being kind of brought into
the arrow where um, these these newer engines don't sound
like we think an engine should sound like. So even
if it's V six, it doesn't sound like a V
six sounded ten years ago. And if it's a if
it's an in line four, it doesn't sound like an
inline four in a sports car sounded like you know,
(30:37):
ten years ago. It's all different. Well, and also you know,
we're we're part of a generational shift as people are
getting newer cars and as younger drivers are getting their
license or buying their first car. That's you know, not
a not a loaner from the folks, and people might
be growing up without having her these these big throaty
(31:02):
groans of of an engine opening all the way up.
So maybe they won't miss it. But I'll tell you what, Scott, Honestly,
aside from a safety issue for someone hearing, you know,
hearing external card like I think Prius has um an
external notification system of some sort but but aside from that,
(31:23):
I gotta say I'm going old school with this. I'm
not swayed. I don't really not swayed. Yeah, okay, well
what if I said that? And this is the way
he put it, not me. He says that a lot
of modern engines, the way that they truly sound, without
any amplification, without any kind of enhancement of any kind,
A lot of them sound, as he put it, they
have like an agricultural sound. And he said, well, and
(31:44):
the author said, well, what do you mean agricultural? And
he said, like a tractor And he said, that's exactly
what I mean, like a tractor. So a lot of
cars now, because of the way you know, the turbo chargers,
the deactivation that you know, the down speeding and transmissions,
all that they create a completely different he's coming from
your car than what you think should be coming from
your end from your car, from your engine, and the
(32:06):
other angle of this. And there's more about this we
can talk about, I guess. But it's not just inside
that they're that they're messing around with. They are thinking
about amplifying the exterior sound of the car as well.
So that's kind of like the next phase. But they're
still trying to convince a lot of manufacturers to to
jump on this bandwagon to say we can make your
product sound a lot better. It's gonna be more enticing
for your your buyers because this is the way it sounds.
(32:29):
When they take it for test drive, they're gonna really
like this. And if they can sell them on that,
then they can sell them on the idea that, you know,
let's change what it sounds like on the outside as well,
so you know, it's impressive when it pulls up, it
sounds like what it what that vehicle looks like it
should sound like. I mean, it doesn't sound like um
as he put it here. And let me take just
one quick notes, like and make sure that he says
(32:49):
that a lot of cars sound a lot like a
hair dryer now as well. And that's a that's a
different thing, is that it's more of a like. And
we can all picture what a hair dryer sounds like.
He said, a lot of them are beginning to like that.
So a tractor or a hair dryer, unless you jump
on the synthetic noise bandwagon, that's what your car is
gonna sound like. Yeah, that's specific quotation there is. People
(33:09):
need to understand they're either going to get a hair
dryer sound or something synthetic. If they can open their
minds to getting something better that's synthetic, then they should
go with that, right, Like that's the idea. Yeah, he's saying,
like the something better is the synthetic sound. That's what
he's saying. And you know, otherwise you're gonna end up
with this this this plane like a like a droning sound.
(33:31):
I guess that's what it's gonna be. So they're calling
this system the exhaust Dynamic Sound Generation. And if you
think that, you remember I said that this is a
big company, right, they work their sixth largest or whatever. Well,
they're convincing manufacturers too, are They're trying to convince the
manufacturers to jump on this bandwagon. And and they work
with just to give you a quick idea, they work
with VW, Pougeot, Citron, Rena, Um, Renault, UM four, GM, BMW, Daimler, Fiat, Chrysler, Toyota.
(33:59):
I mean, the list is a huge list. There's many
many more than that big names, but these are big
names and you're gonna start seeing this. And I think
that manufacturers are going to realize like, yeah, we we
have to do something because it's just not impressing our
our our our customer base. And and of course, you know,
for brands that have always been known for high performance
(34:20):
and for distinctive sounds especially, they're going to have they're
they're going to work assiduously to still have that sound
available in one way or another, even if it's just
you know, resonator plates that you can remove, even you know,
something mechanical like that. Okay, here's here's a small example,
because i know we're running out of time, but I've
got a small example that the will show you just
(34:42):
how far reaching this is. Um. So we know about
the the Formula one controversy over the types of engines
they're using now, right, yea, so they're they're right now
the the standard Formula one engine is a turbo V
six engine. Well, if you go back, um to when
was the last seri as of engines from two thousand
and six to two thirteen, they used a V eight
(35:03):
and people really like that sound. Uh. They also used
three lead V tens from two thousand and five, so
they went from from V tens to V eights and
now they're at turbo V six is well, now they're
these turbo V six sounds. People don't like the noise.
They don't think it sounds very Formula one esque on
the track. So so last year in May, they were
(35:24):
testing I think was Mercedes was testing this, but they
were they were testing this, uh, this trumpet shape attachment
to the exhaust to try to kind of tamper with
the sound that that exhaust was making. And people people
were outraged about that. So so it's like they just say,
what you're doing is false. Here, we understand what you're
you're trying to fake it. It's not it's not really
(35:45):
a thing. And and some people even said, and this
is funny, They've had a comment from one person here,
the notion of a special device attached to the cars
purely to make more noise is so ridiculous. It's offensive.
That was one of the fans. And then you know
there's this other thing. And this is the last a
bit here that I'll mention, but but just to show
you that, you know, even Formula one is kind of
tampering around with sound because they're trying to get it
(36:05):
to sound like something that it isn't. Even though it's
a great car. It's power, it's powerful, it's it's Formula one.
It's amazing car, right, amazing technology. People don't like that
sound that's coming out of that turbo V six. So, um,
they took a survey. But this is again back in
May of two thousand fourteen. But um, it was conducted
by a German news agency, and they found that thirty
(36:25):
six percent of F one fans declare that F one
is less attractive in and only say they're just as
interested as they were before. So thirty six percent of
the people say it's less attractive now and then has
a lot to do. I don't know if it's specifically
and entirely up to that, but but it has a
lot to do with the sound that turbo V six
(36:47):
is making. So they're there, they know it's a problem.
F one knows the problem. Otherwise they wouldn't try things
like that that trumpet shaped resonator tube or whatever it was,
which by the way, failed. They didn't like it. It It
sounded not a whole lot different, So they're gonna have
to do something else. But um, it's a it's a
real problem. I mean, if people don't get that sensation
that they don't use that sense, that fifth sense or whatever. Um,
(37:09):
it's just not gonna fly. You know. It makes me
think of when you when you're talking about the trumpet attachment.
Do you remember those things from the World's Cup that
we're super popular South Africa like some of those boys. Yeah, yeah,
you know what can I can I just wrap it
up with saying this When I was saying that, you know,
I'm swayed. You know I I initially thought it there
(37:31):
was no place for this, and now I think I,
I really do believe that modern cars, that some of
the newer engines, with the turbos and the de activation
cylinders and all that, I believe that they can benefit
from this. And I initially thought there's no way I'm
gonna believe in this. I'm gonna I'm gonna say I'm
against it. But but I've been swayed because of what
that Faricia exhaust engineer was saying that here's your choices,
(37:54):
your new your modern new car is gonna sound like
a tractor, or it's gonna sound like a hair dryer.
I could tell you I don't want. I do not
want a car that sounds like a hair dryer. So yeah,
I don't either. And you don't want, you don't ever
want to spend all the money that it takes to
buy a car and be embarrassed when you drive it,
you know what I mean. And we talked about that
(38:15):
a little bit in our Guilty Pleasures podcasts, and we
can't emphasize enough that we are as as a group,
all car drivers, all car buyers, and car manufacturers even
are at a threshold at a at a at a
maybe a tipping point or a milestone here because the
(38:35):
direction of engine technology is moving towards things that just
don't sound like they used to. Yeah, and it's because
of cafe standards, just people overall shopping for cars based
on miles per gallon um. You know. It's just it's
and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that you
have a price to pay for that. Now, I'm not
saying retrofit older cars that do sound fantastic with something
(38:57):
that's false. You know, if you have an old V
eight engine and it sounds amazing, don't change that in
any way, leave it just as is. And and same
with the know the old V sixes and the inline four.
Is that sound really good? You know? The sport compacts
and things like that, you know, some of them sounding
fantastic and really really nice the way they are. Don't
retrofit it with something that's that's fake. Don't try to
make it sound like a five leader Mustang if it's
(39:18):
not a five leader Mustang. I'm just saying, if it's
a five leader Mustang, you know model, let's say five
leader Mustang. All right, and it sounds like a hair dryer.
How are you gonna feel about that? Yeah, not great. No,
You're gonna want it to sound like a classic Mustang.
And that's and that's part of why you buy it.
But this is this is a question that's that goes
(39:39):
into you know, the nature reality. Not to get too
out there with it. It's like the movie The Matrix.
You know, are you are you really happy living inside
this this falsehood? I know I'm making it a little
bit a little bit extreme there. But there's also one
other thing which I couldn't find any sources on. I
don't know if anybody has thought of this. So, uh,
(40:00):
prepare yourselves for Ben's next get rich quick idea. I'm
taking notes good selling. Uh, digital exhaust sounds like the
way you would sell ring tones. Let me scratch that off.
I'm not gonna do that. Oh that was already on
your list. No no, no, no, no, no no no.
I just I don't know if I don't know if
i'd buy into that, you know, so like it's like
(40:20):
he would own a specific tone, a specific note, right, yeah,
like the way Well you and I, let's face it, Scott,
we're not the kind of guys who would go buy
a ring tone, right, I'm not a ring tone customer,
but there might be digital exhaust customers and get the
get the rarefied sound of uh, you know, an Aston
Martin or something. They why not? I mean it's a possibility.
(40:43):
It's worth trying. Oh it sure is. And and you know,
going on what the faricia uh exhaust engineer was saying,
I mean and in controlling right from the right, from
that iPad um. It wasn't just one manufact was he
was specifically saying, this BMW is gonna sound like a
five leader Mustang, or it's going to sound like what
was the other when the M three with a V
eight um. It's completely possible to to drastically alter the
(41:07):
side of your engine electronically, But but would you yeah, yeah,
especially knowing that you're not actually improving the performance of
the engine in any way. So maybe enhance the sound
of the one that you have, and that's the most
true way to do this, if there is a true
way to do this. So let us know where you're
at on this one, guys, because obviously we we've seen
(41:30):
a lot of nuances to this, and one thing that
we can say for sure is that these digital exhaust
systems are going to continue to proliferate throughout the market. Sure,
so maybe I don't know, either you embrace the hair
dryer sound or you or you decide to jump on
the on the bandwagon here and then go along with
(41:51):
what you know modern manufacturers are gonna be doing, because
there they are going to be doing this, in fact
they are right now. Is just going to become more
and more accepted I guess widely or just too big
with us. Yes, that's probably more in it, So let
us know what you think. You can find Scott and
I on Facebook and Twitter, Where Your Car Stuff, hs DOFU.
(42:12):
You can check out this other podcast we mentioned at
our website. That's right, We've we've moved up in the world.
We have one we are Car Stuff Show dot com,
or you can send us an email directly. It doesn't
have to be about just this topic. It can be
suggestions for another topic you'd like us to cover in
the future. We are our stuff and how stuff works
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
(42:36):
is how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
you think, send an email to podcast at how stuff
works dot com.
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot com. I'm welcome
to car stuff on Scott and on Ben Ben. Today's
topic is going to be polarizing no matter what. Oh yeah, definitely.
So this is all about, um, this is all about
true exhaust sound versus the newer way to do things,
(00:25):
which is a digital or a synthesized exhaust sound that
is uh, in a way false in other ways it's true. Um,
it gets a little bit complicated. We'll we'll describe the
different ways different manufacturers do it. But I think that
people have a strong opinion about this one way or
the other. I, on the other hand, have recently been
swayed in this. Really. Yes, I'm I'm a little bit
(00:48):
surprised because I know that you and I both started
out tremendously skeptical of this digital exhaust or fake exhaust
because it just seems at first glance or at first listen,
it just seems like a cosmetic, ornamental thing, you know.
And I don't know about you, man, but when I
(01:08):
started out looking at this issue, I was orthodox exhaust
all the way. That's all I want. Yeah, Well, same here,
and I have been reading about this more and more,
and I hope that you know, at the end of
this that some people that were kind of the way
that I was, that said, there's no way that shouldn't happen.
We don't really need digital or synthesized exhaust sounds, you know,
(01:30):
piped into the cabin for us to uh, you know,
artificially hear what the engine sounds like. Um, it should
just be natural. It should just be the way the
car sounds. Is the way the car sounds. And you
can tamper with the exhaust tubing the system itself or fine,
but we don't need this, uh, this digital representation of
what the engine should sound like. It seems like it's
faking it in a way. But but I think that
(01:51):
as we talk about this today, I hope that there
are some listeners out there that that will be swayed
by this. We will that will say, I kind of
understand what he's staying. Now. I understand why he may
think that in some cases, and I don't say at all,
I think in some cases that it's say, it's a
valid thing to to include in a vehicle, a new vehicle. Yeah,
I'm with you there, and I that's that's exactly where
(02:13):
I landed on it to Scott. So let's let's set
the stage first by talking about how important the engine
noise of a car or any vehicle actually is. It's
a fingerprint, you know, it's it's a it's a signature
of that specific vehicle. And of course, uh, those of
you out there who are familiar with listening to engine noises,
(02:36):
you know, it's kind of like identifying a bird call
or something. You can tell if that's a Harley coming
your way. Right, we have a podcast just on the
potato potato Harley noise. Yeah, but what if you could
get that exact sound, and I mean identical sound out
of you know, whatever car you drive. I mean whether
it's a Honda Civic or if it's a you know,
(02:58):
Monty Carlo. I'm talking about maybe more than like new
cars instead of adding it to an older car obviously,
But but if you could get that that sound out
of it, would you do that? I mean, that's it.
That's in a way that sounds like that's cheating to me.
There's there's a there's a there's a line of fine
line here, I think between are you cheating something or
are you just enhancing something. Yeah, I think that's fair
(03:21):
for me personally. Does seem dishonest in a way to
to put a car sound or an engine sound that
is not from your vehicle on a on a digital
recorder of some sort and have it emit the same
through the same way that a horn system would admit.
But with that being said, okay, I just have to
(03:42):
say it. In some cases, to me, it's kind of
like for Genius signature. Okay, I get that. I understand
what you're saying, and it would be it would be
that way if you did take that that Harley sound
and you put it into let's say a Ford Focus, Right,
I understand, I understand that. But let's say that you
have a Ford Focus and you enhance the sound that
Afford focus engine naturally makes. But because your car has
(04:04):
been uh tuned, well not that tuned, I guess, but
um well, maybe tuned is the right way to say it,
but it's been quieted in the interior so that you know,
it provides a more pleasant ride when you're on the highway.
You don't hear all the road noise, that tire noise,
all that stuff, and the horns and you know, whatever
that's happening outside. Um, say, you take that that engine
sound that it naturally makes, and you enhance it and
(04:25):
then you allow it to be heard inside and sometimes
only when you want it to be heard. Is there
anything wrong with that? I mean it seems a little
bit like cheating kind of but but it's it's again,
it's more of an enhancement than it is an actual
uh you know, like um forgery. It's not really a forgery.
Like you said, It's not like you're trying to make
(04:46):
it sound like a Formula one car when it's not
a Formula one car you're trying to make You're just
trying to enhance that that Ford focused sound in the
Ford focus so that the person who's driving it gets
the experience that they would have had had the interior
not been um, you know, soundproof. Right. You know, that's
a great That's a great point, Scott, because one of
the things that really stayed with me a while back
(05:10):
for for a different things here at how stuff works.
I was talking with a chef, Kristen Conger, and I, um,
Kristen from stuff mom never told you. She and I
do a food show called food Stuff and this this
chef said something that really impressed me. He said, now,
you cook with all your senses, and a lot of
people forget that when they're cooking. And I think there's
(05:32):
a great comparison here with driving, because we drive with
all of our senses. Right, You smell if something is burning,
you can feel the give or the resistance of a break, right,
and you can feel when the engine struggling. So hearing
the engine is is a huge part of driving as well. Right,
(05:53):
So it makes sense to me from that perspective, if
we if we have a car with a um with
a newer drive train or power train, especially than these
these things are moving in a in a quieter direction.
So it is possible that we're losing valuable information as drivers.
(06:13):
If if if the engine, if we can't hear the
engine telling us what's going on with it, right, then
we're losing some of the information that could help us
be better car owners. Oh, I agree. I mean you're
right about the all using all the senses. By the way,
how many times have you gone out for a drive
and you just leave the window down and the radio
(06:34):
off and you just like to hear the road noise.
You'd like to hear the wind. You like to feel
the wind um, you like to you like to hear
the engine, you like to hear the exhaust. I mean,
I don't know, if your car has a particularly loud
exhausted probably has a quieter exhaust for a better ride.
It does have, it does have a quieter exhaust. Also,
me and the Monte Carlo have have been through a lot,
so I drive with the radio off, the windows down,
(06:56):
or sometimes just idle with the you know, with the
hood up so I can go back and forth and
look to make sure everything's working sure. And there's been
plenty of times that. I mean, I've driven cars that
have just what I think is amazing sounding exhaust. And
I really enjoy when you get out in the country,
in the country somewhere and you can really just kind
of let it go a little bit, yeah exactly, and
(07:17):
you know, maybe hold the gears a little bit longer
than you should, and you know, it's just it's it's
it's a lot of fun. It can be a lot
of fun to listen to your own car. And you know,
a lot of people really enjoy that, particularly owners of
certain types of cars. I mean, let's talk about how
different manufacturers are already doing this because I found an
article here from UM two twelve that explains the different systems.
(07:39):
And I know it's two thousand twelve, so I get
it's a little bit old, but it tells you about
the systems that the manufacturers were using even back then,
and they still are. It's just they've been enhanced for
new models. So some of these models that they mentioned here,
I'll try to just skip over that stuff, UM, because
they're talking about models that will be coming out in
that are already here, UM, not up to date. But
(07:59):
we'll talk about MW, Lexus, Ford, Volkswagen, even Porsche. And
I know there's others out there that are doing this
as well. There's there's more than just the you know,
the five that I mentioned here, but let's just take
them in that order, how about. All right? So here's
what it says about BMW system to give the driver
a better field for the engine and exterior recording. The
M five five motor plays through the car stereo system.
(08:23):
Now this is weird. This is a precise sample of
the engine that is determined by the engine load and rpm,
you know, whatever. It matches what's going on. It's an
electronically controlled system that plays through the car stereo system.
And now some of the real engine notes still come
into the driver, you know, to the driver through you know,
the normal way, like through the windows, you know, through
(08:44):
the installation in the front and everything. Some of it
still makes it through, but the recording is considered more
of like a background track. And BMW this says the
setup helps to allow the driver to be able to
shift at the right points and to reduce the chances
of them bumping the red limited when you know they're
up at the top rpm range. Um. So it gives
(09:04):
them an an oral Q. I guess um A U
R A L y um. Right I just spelled that, right,
I hope we did. But it gives them a queue
that tells them like when to shift and uh. And
you know, it gives them a feel for how the
engine is operating, even though they're in a really comfy interior,
because this thing is well insulated from the road noise. Right, yeah,
(09:24):
and in five has a beast of an engine, right,
it's got that turbocharged V eight right, five sixty horsepower.
Nothing to sneeze at. But because as you were saying,
the because of the soundproofing design. You might be surprised
that what you hear on the outside is not what
you hear once you're inside the vehicle. They call this specifically,
(09:49):
I think their proprietary name for it is the active
sound design System. Is that correct? Very good? I don't
think that's right. I mean it sounds it sounds right,
and uh, it's It's strange because this this system, since
it the emphasis here is on an active since it
is giving you a different noise, as you said, dependent
(10:10):
upon our PM and dependent upon a couple of other factors.
It really is sort of just an indicator of how
the engine is performing, which which I think is an
honest thing to me. It's like another dash display almost.
Oh yeah, I think you're right. And I kind of
just say one thing here. I'm kind of following along
(10:32):
in this article from Car and Driver, I mentioned the
years in from April two twelve, and the the article
title is called Faking It Engine Sound Enhancement explained. If
you want to look this up, because it's a pretty
good chart here that shows I believe the Porsche Panamera.
I can't quite tell which one that is. I think
that's it, but it'll describe how some of these different
systems work. Now let's move on to the Lexus system.
(10:54):
And when we say Lexus, now you think of a
quiet ride, comfortable, you know, luxury car. Right. Well, we're
talking about the Lexus l f A, which is the
supercar alright, so obviously the engine sound is gonna be
important to Lexus lf A owners versus somebody who's driving
around Alexis Sadan. This is a four thousand dollar car
that they were talking about. It's well, it's also well insulated, yeah,
(11:17):
V ten. And the thing about that V ten is
that the sound that they wanted from this was they
wanted like an F one inspired sound, so Formula one racing.
They want that kind of sound out of the engine.
So here's what Lexus does, uh. You know, when they
launched the the l f A, the company wanted drivers
to experience the full range of the V ten you know,
(11:37):
I meaning how it sounded. And to get this, Lexus
contracted Yamaha. Now not Yamaha, you know who makes the
motorcycles and all that we're talking about, Yamaha that creates
the sound, I mean the the Advanced Sound Technologies arm
of Yamaha. So like you know, Yamaha keyboards that you
would see at the mall. You know, someone playing those
(11:58):
uh the demo models at the mall. You know what,
I'm talking to him, right, Okay. So what they did
was is they they tuned the l F a's cabin
specifically for the driver. It treated the engine um as
a sound generator, and then develop components to direct all
of that V ten sounds coming out of you know,
from underneath the hood, all all straight to the driver,
(12:18):
like a way to direct the noise into the driver
at certain points. You know, So if they really get
on the on the gas um, it's going to increase
the noise that comes through that sound generation device. Yeah.
It's it's kind of similar to how in a movie
theater environment, the sound engineers there will pick like pick
(12:39):
a different spot in the theater and tune the sound
to direct it that way. Yeah. Sure, Yeah, that's exactly
what it was. It was tuning the sound to the
cabin of that specific vehicle. And you know, when you're
developing a car that's worth four thousand dollars, you know,
M s r P of that, it probably costs several
you know, I don't know about how many million tens
of millions of dollars to develop. Probably, Um, you're course
(12:59):
going to try to make things like that exactly right,
because you don't want to be a flop when it
when it when it launches and people say, well, it's great,
it's got this V ten but I can't hear it, right, Yeah,
and I know that so far we've been talking about
some higher end vehicles, right, but this isn't just for
supercars and top end luxury. No, no, no. The next
one on the list is Forward. And you wouldn't really
(13:21):
expect maybe Ford to be involved in this because so
far we've been talking about higher end models. But Ford
has installed a resonator pipe between the Mustang g T
s V eight and it's firewall, So they're clearly trying
to get the noise from the engine into the cabin through. Ah.
And I don't want to stay a week point. I
don't mean that at all, but it's the closest point
to the driver and the passengers into the cabin. It's
(13:41):
the easiest way to get the sound in is through
that firewall. Um, now they've got a different model. I
guess that that takes us seat another step right, right, Yeah,
the Boss three oh two adds a second pair of
exhaust pipes and they're tucked right behind the rocker panels.
So if you own this, you can remove these restricts
your plates just upstream of the side exits and that
(14:03):
will open up the exhaust. So if you want noise,
oh brother, oh yeah, you know what. There's another article
from Car and Driver that that explains exactly how you
can unplug your Boss Mustang. So uh, it's from two
thousand eleven and the title is the Boss Unplugged And
if you if you search for that, that's a funny title.
I know, through Springsteen, right, exactly right, But but it
(14:26):
does tell you how to unplug this. And what's funny
is that when you look through this, there's like a
second set of pipes under there. So if you ever
look underneath A three or two, a Boss three or
two rather, you'll see a lot of extra exhaust pipes
going on underneath there. And the thing is that there's
like this outlet where um additional eng and I'm gonna
describe this incorrectly, but a series of valves opens and
(14:47):
closes and allows the exhaust to free flow out one
way or the other. And if if you know where
this piece is, you can take off six bolts and
remove these these restrictor plates. These restrictor plates are incredib
of boll. I mean when you open the pipe up, uh,
you know what the restrictorr plate looks like. It's just
a flat plate with a tiny hole cut in it. Well,
I think that this this pin they call it a
(15:08):
pinhole restrictor. I think it's something like seven sixteenths of
an of an inch is all that it's allowing through there.
I mean we're talking like a I don't know, I'm
gonna guess a two and a half inch pipe. Yeah,
And and that that hole is even a little bit smaller.
It's like five six five sixteenth, it's a five sixteenth
inch hole instead of having that full two and a
half inches or whatever that is two and a quarter inches. Um.
(15:29):
So you can imagine when you remove that plate, what
the sound is like coming through there, and how much
more exhaust is allowed to flow through. You can hear
the difference. I mean you can also search for you know, uh,
you know BOSS three or two plugged versus unplugged sound
and stuff like that. It'll come up. You'll be able
to find it, but it's the difference is dramatic. It
turns it into like a It sounds like a race car. Now. Also,
(15:51):
there is a warning there, a little bit of legal
business that you and I have to do, Scott, doing
this may void your warranty. Yeah, I guess I. I
think it would probably be worth it. And it just
depends on which want. You know what I would do it?
I don't. I mean, it's not gonna I. I see
how like they have to say, doing this might void
(16:12):
your warranty, but I don't see how it could be damaged. Okay,
let me tell you this. All it takes is about
ten seconds of listening to this thing unplugged to change
their mind because it sounds amazing. It really does. It's
pretty incredible. So let's move on to the next one.
That was that's a kind of a one off example, right,
all right, So let's move on to Volkswagen. How Volkswagen
(16:33):
handles this and alright, so here's what happened with Volkswagen. Previously,
they used a resonator tube similar to the one that
the Mustang used, but they only used it in their
G T I model, and then they switched to a
new system called this sound actor Yeah name, I do
like the name, the sound actor system, right. So the
system is a lot like the M fives and that
the audio file is stored in the cars computer and
(16:55):
then played during certain throttle applications. So again it's throttle dependent. Um,
you know, ramps up with a throttle. And Okay, the
where the place that this noise comes from is it
comes from under the hood through a dedicated speaker that's
located near the engine's throttle body, right, and that's all
that speaker does, right. Isn't that interesting though? A speaker
(17:15):
under the hood. That's so strange that they would do this.
Now it's not just this one. It's not just the
g T I anymore. Either. There's several models that use this. Yeah,
there's the g L I and the Beetle Turbo as well. Yeah,
and I would I would guess I'm gonna I'm gonna
guess that there's gonna be maybe even more vehicles in
the line that are using this now at this point,
now that we're three years down. So again, the sound
(17:37):
actor system and if you want to try to, you know,
locate that thing and see it, you know, go to
a VW dealer and just poke around under the hood
and see if you can locate it. I think that'd
be kind of cool, look for all right. Um, Plus,
you can go in and soundly like you know what
you're doing. You go, oh, the sound actor, yeah, and
I'm like, what are you talking about? I have no idea. Uh.
So there's another one here too, which is the diagram
(17:59):
at the at the very top of this article. We
at house up Works predictably love a cutaway that shows
you the different systems of a vehicle or a piece
of technology. Porsche has something they call the sound Symposer. Uh.
This was on the nine eleven and the Panama GTS.
(18:20):
It's I don't know, Scott, I would say, it's kind
of like the M five. Yeah, I guess so it's.
But it's also like the it's also similar to the
Volkswagen and that the that it amplifies the intake noise.
So I don't know's it's kind of a mix of both.
I guess, um. But it says that, you know, the
reason that they put this on the nine eleven is
(18:40):
because as the and they say it this way, they say,
as the as the needs of the owners has has
grown you know, as the as the the age, I guess,
so the people that are typical to buy something like
that have grown because we're talking about cars now that
are a hundred and forty hundred sixty dollars you know,
when you get to the top end turbo levels even
more in some cases not really your first car out
(19:01):
of high school, know exactly right. But one one need
that the older drivers seem to like is that you
can have quiet cruising when you want it um and
in a in an older portion that wasn't always possible.
So now you know, they've again, as we said many times,
they've insulated the cabin. They've made it a lot more comfortable,
it's more of a and again we were talking about
(19:22):
this blurred line between luxury car sports car, and this
is part of that, right, This is one of the
downsides I guess for the people that want the sports
car side. And they make a note here that one
thing in particular is loud. Wide low profile rubber tires
just make a super loud noise when you're cruising along
it let's say eighty miles per hour on the highway.
I mean they're they're very, very loud, and so they
(19:43):
use a lot of UM, a lot of sound dampening, UH,
to get rid of that kind of sound. And what happened.
What happens is then it it takes away the engine
sound as well, you know, the exhaust sound. So they
had a problem with that, right because a lot of
people like that sound. So what they want to do
is amplify that particular part that they want to come in,
but keep out the rest. Of course, she uses what
they call in UM an acoustic channel for for this UM,
(20:07):
this sound symposers system, and it consists of a tube
that houses a diaphragm and a valve and you can
switch that on and off depending on whether you want
quiet cruising or if you want to hear the engine howl.
And at this point, blas and gentlemen, you might be saying,
I might be saying, well, this is not the real noise.
(20:29):
I don't like it. UH. Clearly, not all of these
sound systems are created equally. Some, like the BMW or plane,
prerecorded noises in response to signals from the engine and
the CPU. Others are using purely mechanical means to allow
you to have some control over the noise that you hear.
(20:49):
As a driver. But there's another thing here. We've talked
we've talked about the the cosmetic or aesthetic aspects, right
when we've talked about the the manage of being able
to hear your car's performance. But I advanced to you
that as power trains continue to grow quieter, there's a
safety aspect here. Safety not just on the interior of
(21:13):
the car, but in the exterior. I have a little
bit of a news story for you, all right, So recently,
and this story comes to us, um just a few
days ago as we record this. This was at the
end of March in David Crosby accidentally hit a jogger
with his Tesla. David Crosby David Cross musician, Yeah, also
(21:35):
apparently drives the Tesla. M So uh David Crosby who
also uh surprisingly drives the Tesla in my opinion, uh,
he struck a jogger when he was driving near his
home which is around the Santa Barbara area. The driver
is the driver is alive, not life threatening injuries. But
(21:57):
this report got me thinking. And this was actually I
was talking about this episode with our bosses Brian and
Jason just before we went into record, and they told
me about this, So this is what it got me
thinking about, Scott. Would would there ever be a point
where electric vehicles being so quiet in comparison to regular uh,
(22:20):
I see vehicles. What would there be a point where
as a safety thing, we would need the vehicle to
make some noise. They've talked about this in the past
day first city driving, particularly because a lot of people
just don't pay as much attention when they step off
the curb as they should. And it's I think it's
happened many times already. Yeah, David Crosby is not the
(22:41):
first person. No, no, absolutely not. And you know it's
just that they're just so silent when they approach. And
you can you can test this for yourself in a
parking lot if you see, you know, maybe a Prius
or something that's under five miles per hour, or if
you do happen to see a tesla, you can you
can listen to it as it goes by and you
can hear the tires rolling. It depends on the surface.
I guess that you're right. But for the most part
(23:02):
they're pretty silent, and they could be uh, it could
be a problem, I guess if you were you know,
not paying if if both parties aren't really paying attention.
You know, you don't see someone stuff off the curb.
They're not really listening for anything. You would think they
would see a four thousand pound car headed their way.
But you know, things happening, sure, and you know there
could also be implement weather things that would reduce visibility, etcetera.
(23:24):
But it's funny because this episode made me think of
one time my parents bought a hybrid and my father
in particular was not wild about how quiet it would
be at a stoplight. Instaid I keep thinking, it's just
turned off, Well, was it switched off? Maybe had the
the automatic on off right, right? But I think for
(23:47):
him it was just the just the lack of noise
he's disturbing. It is troubling. I mean, it makes you
think that there's something wrong. I mean, I know we've
talked about several of these issues already, and we did
say something about manufacturers considering adding that option if you
wanted to. Its almost like a switch, like you could
flip on a switch and you could operate in a
mode that would allow some type of sound to come
(24:08):
from the outside, so it's broadcast outside of the vehicle
and that's oh, that's another angle. You know what we
before I even mentioned this other thing that I want
to get so I don't forget it, and it may
come up at the end of this I don't know,
but they are talking about amplifying sound outside the vehicles
as well, not just inside for the driver, but the
sound that people hear outside. So let's get onto the
(24:30):
next thing here. But one other little item that I
wanted to mention here was a something we've talked about
on this podcast before and I think it was in
maybe accessories or something like that, but the something called
the sound raiser, and the sound raiser is that device
you plug into your your power outlet, which was to
be the cigarette lighter, cigar lighter or whatever, yeah, a
(24:51):
long time ago, and um, you plug it in. You
you find a free F FM frequency on your car
stereo and you set it to the same frequency and
then you do this little matching set up and then
suddenly that little you know, four banger engine in your
car sounds like a V eight or a V ten
or it sounds like um, the specifically the the Lexus
(25:14):
l F a V ten or it could sound like,
you know, not V twelve engine. You know, they've got
different models. I think they have four different models, but
it's about forty five bucks up to about fifty five bucks.
It's a cool little thing. I've noticed something ben as
like as I go through the site, because there's there's
three retail outlets in the United States that sell these
that's it. Um there's well, they're sold all around the world,
(25:36):
but in the United States there's just three outlets, and
each one of those three outlets, UM I checked for
specifically the V eight sound because to me, I've listened
to all these know audio clips, the V eight sound
is that the coolest one, and in my opinion, and
every single one of those places it's sold out. That's
all three of those places. So clearly that's clearly that's
(25:57):
a favorite among the people here in the United States.
They want that V eight sound and it's sold out
through like the next two months or something. So even
if you order one now you have to wait like
three months to get one. But it's a cool thing.
So look up sound Racer if you want to get
a good chuckle. And who knows, maybe that's a Christmas
gift or something coming up, because it is a really
cool thing. If somebody really likes the sound of engines,
(26:17):
it would be so fun to do that. And they said,
you know a lot of people will report when they
put this in and they kind of fool their friends
with it because they put it, they haven't installed. I
let their friend get in the car, and then let's
say here, I think one story. I read the guys
in like a Mini Cooper or something, and uh, you know,
he turned the engine on. Of course that here here's
this blur blur blurb, sound like a like a V
eight idling and then they take off and they said
(26:39):
they couldn't stop laughing the whole time. It's just so
much fun to drive like that. You know. I like
the idea of Scott and as we always say, teach
his own. If it's your car, do what you want.
But I personally would be continually irritated that I didn't
really have that engine. I guess so. But you know what,
if you're driving like a snappy little car, I mean
something that's sporty and quick, you know, because like some
(26:59):
of these let's say a hot Hatch, but it but
it doesn't necessarily have a fantastic engine sound or anything, right,
and you put this in there, and you drive something
that that is uh, you know, spirited. I guess something
that's fun to drive, something that handles real crisp and everything.
Pair that with the V eight sound how cool because
it matches exactly. It's not just like an audio track
that that continually runs at a certain speed. No, no,
(27:22):
it's it's matched your engine revs. So it would sound
like it would sound like you're driving a V eight.
It would be really cool to do. I think. I
know it's fooling yourself. I get it. I get that.
And no one else outside can hear that, so they
probably wondering why you're you're having so much fun driving
this uh this, you know, little hatchback whatever. All right,
all right, let's move on past this. Now this may
(27:42):
be the thing that changes our listeners minds, because it
it changed my mind. And this is uh, this is
something that this this uh, this guy from Auto Week,
his name is Bradford Warnie. Uh. This is a recent
article March of and he was talking with a friend
of his or you know, sitting in a vehicle with
a friend of his um who works for a company
called Farisia. Now Farisia is a huge automotive parts manufacturer.
(28:06):
They're the sixth largest parts manufacturer in the world. It's
a really big place, right and they're experimenting with um
you know, these digitally enhanced these synthetic sounds for engines,
and so he was kind of the person to talk
to this guy. His name is Andrew, the guy that
he was talking to, and he's an exhaust engineer. And
they were in the in the seat of a BMW
(28:28):
sedan and he had an iPad with him with a
touch screen and he had you know, one ft on
the accelerator pedal, and he showed the author how the
exhaust sounds could be generated, you know, in the future,
you know, because he said, okay, here's what it sounds
like now, and he rebbed it, and you know, it's
the two leader four cylinder engine seated, you know, sounds
just like a two leader four cylinder engine. But then
(28:49):
he touches the iPad screen and the engine sounds instantly
in the cabin, instantly sounds like he's driving a V
six Maseratio. That's what it sounds like. So no, he
touches it again and it sounds like a BMW M
three with a V eight and he touches it again
and it sounds like a five leader Mustang V eight,
which you and I think we can all picture that side.
(29:11):
But that sounds coming out of a two leader BMW
engine from So it's that easy. I mean, it's that
simple for him to change between those three or four
different sounds with an iPad or rather with an iPad,
and um, the thing is that one other time he
touched it one more time and it all the sound
went away, like it was super quiet. So he was
(29:33):
doing he was employing, uh, sound canceling technology at that point,
kind of like what we have in near the high
end headphones. Sure, very similar to that. So I know
that this is a polarizing idea, but he's saying that
the modern power trains, as you mentioned Ben, you know,
a lot of these are are using turbo chargers and
cylinder deactivation and engine down speeding and all these multi
(29:55):
speed transmissions that have you know, eight nine forward gears
to make things a quieter inside the cabin. And you know,
it's like I said, it's great for mileage, it's great
for um, you know, of course paying less for fuel.
It's great for sound dampening. Of course, it makes everything
a lot quieter. But what it does is it it
makes engines a lot less Um. Obviously they're a lot
(30:16):
less sexy. They don't sound like the engines of the
past do so, so we're being kind of brought into
the arrow where um, these these newer engines don't sound
like we think an engine should sound like. So even
if it's V six, it doesn't sound like a V
six sounded ten years ago. And if it's a if
it's an in line four, it doesn't sound like an
inline four in a sports car sounded like you know,
(30:37):
ten years ago. It's all different. Well, and also you know,
we're we're part of a generational shift as people are
getting newer cars and as younger drivers are getting their
license or buying their first car. That's you know, not
a not a loaner from the folks, and people might
be growing up without having her these these big throaty
(31:02):
groans of of an engine opening all the way up.
So maybe they won't miss it. But I'll tell you what, Scott, Honestly,
aside from a safety issue for someone hearing, you know,
hearing external card like I think Prius has um an
external notification system of some sort but but aside from that,
(31:23):
I gotta say I'm going old school with this. I'm
not swayed. I don't really not swayed. Yeah, okay, well
what if I said that? And this is the way
he put it, not me. He says that a lot
of modern engines, the way that they truly sound, without
any amplification, without any kind of enhancement of any kind,
A lot of them sound, as he put it, they
have like an agricultural sound. And he said, well, and
(31:44):
the author said, well, what do you mean agricultural? And
he said, like a tractor And he said, that's exactly
what I mean, like a tractor. So a lot of
cars now, because of the way you know, the turbo chargers,
the deactivation that you know, the down speeding and transmissions,
all that they create a completely different he's coming from
your car than what you think should be coming from
your end from your car, from your engine, and the
(32:06):
other angle of this. And there's more about this we
can talk about, I guess. But it's not just inside
that they're that they're messing around with. They are thinking
about amplifying the exterior sound of the car as well.
So that's kind of like the next phase. But they're
still trying to convince a lot of manufacturers to to
jump on this bandwagon to say we can make your
product sound a lot better. It's gonna be more enticing
for your your buyers because this is the way it sounds.
(32:29):
When they take it for test drive, they're gonna really
like this. And if they can sell them on that,
then they can sell them on the idea that, you know,
let's change what it sounds like on the outside as well,
so you know, it's impressive when it pulls up, it
sounds like what it what that vehicle looks like it
should sound like. I mean, it doesn't sound like um
as he put it here. And let me take just
one quick notes, like and make sure that he says
(32:49):
that a lot of cars sound a lot like a
hair dryer now as well. And that's a that's a
different thing, is that it's more of a like. And
we can all picture what a hair dryer sounds like.
He said, a lot of them are beginning to like that.
So a tractor or a hair dryer, unless you jump
on the synthetic noise bandwagon, that's what your car is
gonna sound like. Yeah, that's specific quotation there is. People
(33:09):
need to understand they're either going to get a hair
dryer sound or something synthetic. If they can open their
minds to getting something better that's synthetic, then they should
go with that, right, Like that's the idea. Yeah, he's saying,
like the something better is the synthetic sound. That's what
he's saying. And you know, otherwise you're gonna end up
with this this this plane like a like a droning sound.
(33:31):
I guess that's what it's gonna be. So they're calling
this system the exhaust Dynamic Sound Generation. And if you
think that, you remember I said that this is a
big company, right, they work their sixth largest or whatever. Well,
they're convincing manufacturers too, are They're trying to convince the
manufacturers to jump on this bandwagon. And and they work
with just to give you a quick idea, they work
with VW, Pougeot, Citron, Rena, Um, Renault, UM four, GM, BMW, Daimler, Fiat, Chrysler, Toyota.
(33:59):
I mean, the list is a huge list. There's many
many more than that big names, but these are big
names and you're gonna start seeing this. And I think
that manufacturers are going to realize like, yeah, we we
have to do something because it's just not impressing our
our our our customer base. And and of course, you know,
for brands that have always been known for high performance
(34:20):
and for distinctive sounds especially, they're going to have they're
they're going to work assiduously to still have that sound
available in one way or another, even if it's just
you know, resonator plates that you can remove, even you know,
something mechanical like that. Okay, here's here's a small example,
because i know we're running out of time, but I've
got a small example that the will show you just
(34:42):
how far reaching this is. Um. So we know about
the the Formula one controversy over the types of engines
they're using now, right, yea, so they're they're right now
the the standard Formula one engine is a turbo V
six engine. Well, if you go back, um to when
was the last seri as of engines from two thousand
and six to two thirteen, they used a V eight
(35:03):
and people really like that sound. Uh. They also used
three lead V tens from two thousand and five, so
they went from from V tens to V eights and
now they're at turbo V six is well, now they're
these turbo V six sounds. People don't like the noise.
They don't think it sounds very Formula one esque on
the track. So so last year in May, they were
(35:24):
testing I think was Mercedes was testing this, but they
were they were testing this, uh, this trumpet shape attachment
to the exhaust to try to kind of tamper with
the sound that that exhaust was making. And people people
were outraged about that. So so it's like they just say,
what you're doing is false. Here, we understand what you're
you're trying to fake it. It's not it's not really
(35:45):
a thing. And and some people even said, and this
is funny, They've had a comment from one person here,
the notion of a special device attached to the cars
purely to make more noise is so ridiculous. It's offensive.
That was one of the fans. And then you know
there's this other thing. And this is the last a
bit here that I'll mention, but but just to show
you that, you know, even Formula one is kind of
tampering around with sound because they're trying to get it
(36:05):
to sound like something that it isn't. Even though it's
a great car. It's power, it's powerful, it's it's Formula one.
It's amazing car, right, amazing technology. People don't like that
sound that's coming out of that turbo V six. So, um,
they took a survey. But this is again back in
May of two thousand fourteen. But um, it was conducted
by a German news agency, and they found that thirty
(36:25):
six percent of F one fans declare that F one
is less attractive in and only say they're just as
interested as they were before. So thirty six percent of
the people say it's less attractive now and then has
a lot to do. I don't know if it's specifically
and entirely up to that, but but it has a
lot to do with the sound that turbo V six
(36:47):
is making. So they're there, they know it's a problem.
F one knows the problem. Otherwise they wouldn't try things
like that that trumpet shaped resonator tube or whatever it was,
which by the way, failed. They didn't like it. It It
sounded not a whole lot different, So they're gonna have
to do something else. But um, it's a it's a
real problem. I mean, if people don't get that sensation
that they don't use that sense, that fifth sense or whatever. Um,
(37:09):
it's just not gonna fly. You know. It makes me
think of when you when you're talking about the trumpet attachment.
Do you remember those things from the World's Cup that
we're super popular South Africa like some of those boys. Yeah, yeah,
you know what can I can I just wrap it
up with saying this When I was saying that, you know,
I'm swayed. You know I I initially thought it there
(37:31):
was no place for this, and now I think I,
I really do believe that modern cars, that some of
the newer engines, with the turbos and the de activation
cylinders and all that, I believe that they can benefit
from this. And I initially thought there's no way I'm
gonna believe in this. I'm gonna I'm gonna say I'm
against it. But but I've been swayed because of what
that Faricia exhaust engineer was saying that here's your choices,
(37:54):
your new your modern new car is gonna sound like
a tractor, or it's gonna sound like a hair dryer.
I could tell you I don't want. I do not
want a car that sounds like a hair dryer. So yeah,
I don't either. And you don't want, you don't ever
want to spend all the money that it takes to
buy a car and be embarrassed when you drive it,
you know what I mean. And we talked about that
(38:15):
a little bit in our Guilty Pleasures podcasts, and we
can't emphasize enough that we are as as a group,
all car drivers, all car buyers, and car manufacturers even
are at a threshold at a at a at a
maybe a tipping point or a milestone here because the
(38:35):
direction of engine technology is moving towards things that just
don't sound like they used to. Yeah, and it's because
of cafe standards, just people overall shopping for cars based
on miles per gallon um. You know. It's just it's
and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that you
have a price to pay for that. Now, I'm not
saying retrofit older cars that do sound fantastic with something
(38:57):
that's false. You know, if you have an old V
eight engine and it sounds amazing, don't change that in
any way, leave it just as is. And and same
with the know the old V sixes and the inline four.
Is that sound really good? You know? The sport compacts
and things like that, you know, some of them sounding
fantastic and really really nice the way they are. Don't
retrofit it with something that's that's fake. Don't try to
make it sound like a five leader Mustang if it's
(39:18):
not a five leader Mustang. I'm just saying, if it's
a five leader Mustang, you know model, let's say five
leader Mustang. All right, and it sounds like a hair dryer.
How are you gonna feel about that? Yeah, not great. No,
You're gonna want it to sound like a classic Mustang.
And that's and that's part of why you buy it.
But this is this is a question that's that goes
(39:39):
into you know, the nature reality. Not to get too
out there with it. It's like the movie The Matrix.
You know, are you are you really happy living inside
this this falsehood? I know I'm making it a little
bit a little bit extreme there. But there's also one
other thing which I couldn't find any sources on. I
don't know if anybody has thought of this. So, uh,
(40:00):
prepare yourselves for Ben's next get rich quick idea. I'm
taking notes good selling. Uh, digital exhaust sounds like the
way you would sell ring tones. Let me scratch that off.
I'm not gonna do that. Oh that was already on
your list. No no, no, no, no, no no no.
I just I don't know if I don't know if
i'd buy into that, you know, so like it's like
(40:20):
he would own a specific tone, a specific note, right, yeah,
like the way Well you and I, let's face it, Scott,
we're not the kind of guys who would go buy
a ring tone, right, I'm not a ring tone customer,
but there might be digital exhaust customers and get the
get the rarefied sound of uh, you know, an Aston
Martin or something. They why not? I mean it's a possibility.
(40:43):
It's worth trying. Oh it sure is. And and you know,
going on what the faricia uh exhaust engineer was saying,
I mean and in controlling right from the right, from
that iPad um. It wasn't just one manufact was he
was specifically saying, this BMW is gonna sound like a
five leader Mustang, or it's going to sound like what
was the other when the M three with a V
eight um. It's completely possible to to drastically alter the
(41:07):
side of your engine electronically, But but would you yeah, yeah,
especially knowing that you're not actually improving the performance of
the engine in any way. So maybe enhance the sound
of the one that you have, and that's the most
true way to do this, if there is a true
way to do this. So let us know where you're
at on this one, guys, because obviously we we've seen
(41:30):
a lot of nuances to this, and one thing that
we can say for sure is that these digital exhaust
systems are going to continue to proliferate throughout the market. Sure,
so maybe I don't know, either you embrace the hair
dryer sound or you or you decide to jump on
the on the bandwagon here and then go along with
(41:51):
what you know modern manufacturers are gonna be doing, because
there they are going to be doing this, in fact
they are right now. Is just going to become more
and more accepted I guess widely or just too big
with us. Yes, that's probably more in it, So let
us know what you think. You can find Scott and
I on Facebook and Twitter, Where Your Car Stuff, hs DOFU.
(42:12):
You can check out this other podcast we mentioned at
our website. That's right, We've we've moved up in the world.
We have one we are Car Stuff Show dot com,
or you can send us an email directly. It doesn't
have to be about just this topic. It can be
suggestions for another topic you'd like us to cover in
the future. We are our stuff and how stuff works
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
(42:36):
is how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
you think, send an email to podcast at how stuff
works dot com.
CarStuff News
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Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
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