The secret to making your V8 engine roar

Making your exhaust sound louder and deeper can be as simple as simply replacing your muffler. Many owners of cars with V8 engines don’t want to muffle the roar of their engines and are always looking for ways to improve the sound of their vehicles. The basic muffler design you’re looking for to make your car sound louder is a straight-through muffler. Mufflers designed to silence engine exhaust gases circulate the exhaust gases once or twice inside the muffler to deaden the sound. Some owners have found that using a straight pipe instead of fitting a replacement muffler is sufficient. With V8 engines, you can also put a cross pipe just after the exhaust manifolds to give the engine exhaust a different sound. The sound will be much louder, but this may be what you are looking for.

The distinctive V8 sound comes from uneven exhaust pressures on either side of the engine, which is a direct result of having an odd firing order. The very distinctive exhaust sound made by a V8 crossplane is from the irregular firing order. Crossplane refers to the crankshaft layout used in most automotive V8 engines. These crankshaft designs provide smoother operation due to the large crankshaft counterweights used to balance engine vibrations. Opposite a cross plane is a flat plane crankshaft which is often used in high output V8’s for its high rev capabilities in exchange for harsher running.

Whenever two cylinders fire on the same side in sequence, the two exhaust pulses create high exhaust pressure and a noise that can be heard in the exhaust pipe. This is repeated later in the firing order on the other side of the engine. Balance tubes are often used to equalize the large difference in exhaust pressure between each side of the engine. Pressure equalization improves exhaust evacuation, especially at low RPM. This is why, after mufflers, the next exhaust system modifications will include a larger diameter cross pipe or a different design. The final exhaust system modification you can make is to replace your V8 engine’s exhaust manifold with headers, which when designed correctly will improve horsepower and give your engine a more aggressive sound. Some “tips” you’ll hear or read online are about removing catalytic converters to produce a louder sound from your engine. While this may be the case, jacks are a legal requirement to operate a motor vehicle and it is irresponsible to remove them.