Loud car & bike exhausts - should the police take more action?

[stimpy]

Let's see.....no-one I know wears Burberry nor is a chav including myself. I drive a 1.3L car that I pay £125 a year for road tax....and yet it's insurance group 20.

 

Let's see if you can figure out what I drive. I'll give you another clue, it cost over £35k if I'd have bought it new 16 years ago

 

Incidentally everyone I know with very loud exhausts have them for a reason, namely performance.

 

My money is on an RX7.....

 

can a bit of extra pipe on the exhaust really improve the performance of a car?

 

Even if they can its still anti social, cos leaving my road which is a 30mph limit and most roads in Sheffield are, why do you need it? Its just vanity surely? And on a motorway most these cars couldn't get out of the first lane.

 

Yes a backbox can make a difference. It can reduce the back pressure in the system and allow for a more free flowing exhaust. They can also be detrimental to performance as remove to much back pressure by putting a larger diameter pipe on can cause the exhaust gasses not to be extracted fully.

 

I had a supra that was double decatted with a Nurspec box on and that was loud, maybe excessively but it was a performance upgrade.

[convert]

Lets see ...... maybe two Citroen 2CV's bolted together or a Ford Fiesta with solid gold and diamond encrusted dice?

 

Pray tell ... all these people you know with very loud exhausts to improve performance .... what cars do they drive? I'm sort of expecting Bugatti, Lamborghini, Koenigsegg etc here. Please don't disappoint !

 

Well my loud car is a TVR. The exhaust is the standard factory fit (read 22 year old) stainless steel sports exhaust.

 

The car is quite loud @ 105Db, but since there isn't a defined legal limit as to how loud an exhaust can be it's road legal.

 

 

 

It does, however, fail the drive by noise tests at some trackdays. This can be gotten around by fitting a clamp on silencer to the end of the exhaust.

 

As has already been pointed out, free flow exhausts help to improve both efficiency and power output by redcuing the amount of back pressure in the system. This allows for the gases in the combustion chamber to be evacuated more efficiently. Of course this only applies to a properly designed system. Most of the big bore back boxes sold as 'performance' upgrades will actually interfere with the exaust pulse lengths and sometimes they can even reduce performance.

 

PS I'm stoopid and didn't see Stimpy's post above.

 

PPS I agree with Stimpy, the 1.3 car has got a Wânkel under the hood.

[teuton]

Well I think this thread has now been brought to a satisfactory conclusion, that most of us can agree on

 

It is done for attention, because their bangers aren't good enough they have to be loud to get attenion

[vwkittie]

I've got a stainless because my car (Golf GTI) is now 18 years old and the mild steel system kept failing at various points. It was more expensive to replace it with an OE mild system than having a stainless made up.

 

Also, the stainless system will now last well into the future with very minimal maintenance, so that's another advantage.

 

And it is a slight performance upgrade for the reasons already explained by Convert and Stimpy.

 

Sadly, a lot of people just fit a huge loud backbox onto their 1.2 Corsa. This makes it sound far too loud and will more than likely degrade the performance of the car.

 

So yes, a lot of people do just do it to their banger for the attention, but also some of us have a louder than normal exhaust for valid reasons. The people with valid reasons are not the ones driving like muppets at 5:30am however.

[Guest]

My money is on an RX7.....

 

Yup

 

To answer blade73, yep they can. Most performance cars have restricted exhaust systems due to trying to keep noise and emissions down as well as cost.

 

Alcoblog, no they're other RX7 owners generally running well over 400bhp.

[Alcoblog]

Yup

 

To answer blade73, yep they can. Most performance cars have restricted exhaust systems due to trying to keep noise and emissions down as well as cost.

 

Alcoblog, no they're other RX7 owners generally running well over 400bhp.

 

Actually I think I should come clean here. I really think the idea of fitting loud pipes on Corsas etc is dead chavvy. However, I do understand that tuned exhausts can improve the performance of an engine (not necessarily making the exhaust much louder) To this end I had a 'screaming eagle' exhaust system fitted to my Harley Davidson V-rod. This was an after market system made by Harley to improve performance. It did! However at slow revs the bike was hardly any louder (which I wanted) Opening the throttle wide, it made a noise like a wailing banshee with obvious performance increase! So yeah!... on performance cars I can see the appeal but not for noise reasons!

[Uptowngirl]

Incidentally everyone I know with very loud exhausts have them for a reason, namely performance.

 

:hihi::hihi::hihi:

 

 

My vote for funniest post of the year so far.

[Blade73]

:hihi::hihi::hihi:

 

 

My vote for funniest post of the year so far.

 

Ha Ha

 

You seem to know a lot for a lady!

[Uptowngirl]

Ha Ha

 

You seem to know a lot for a lady!

 

I know that when they remove the 1.2 badges it ain't to save weight.

[wellyman]

The car is quite loud @ 105Db, but since there isn't a defined legal limit as to how loud an exhaust can be it's road legal.

 

 

 

 

Are you sure about that?

 

http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/information/cars-and-noise.asp

 

Cars and Noise

 

 

The external noise emitted by passenger cars has been controlled since 1929 when the Motor Cars (Excessive Noise) regulations were introduced. New cars are now required to meet Europe-wide noise limits. These have been progressively reduced from 82 decibels (dB(A)) in 1978 to the current limit of 74 dB(A) established in 1996. This means it would take 7 new vehicles to make the same amount of noise as one vehicle that just meets the pre-1978 limits. Information on the level of noise recorded for new models of cars at their type approval test is also listed in the data table.

 

When looking at this information please note that off-road vehicles are allowed to be 1dB(A) louder, as are direct injection diesels. These allowances are cumulative, so the limit for an off-road vehicle with a direct injection diesel engine is 76 dB(A).

 

The noise levels quoted above are the maximum levels that are permitted for new vehicle type. Many vehicles produce lower levels of noise, and it is illegal to modify the exhaust system of a vehicle to make it noisier than the level recorded for that model at type approval.