What engine sounds the best?

[pparaska]

I can't decide:

P-51 Mustang flying overhead

427 GT40 on a racetrack

Mclaren F1 at full tilt

ProMod Drag car V8 through the lights

Ferarri flat 12

[Guest Anonymous]

Check this out, its a sound file from a 1957 Moto Guzzi V8 road racer (motorcycle):

 

http://www.mgcycle.com/V8.wav

 

And here it is with the fairing off, it last raced at Isle of Man:

 

http://www.mgcycle.com/26.jpg

 

Oh for the record, its a 500cc bike, not sure on the horsepower, but in the above wave file you can hear what a half litre bike turning 13,000 RPM's sounds like!

 

Regards,

 

Lone

[Ray]

Im with pete p51's are hard to beat...

 

My favorite though was a Shadow Can am car I got to tech when I was a scrutineer in SF region SCCA.

 

500cid injected all aluminum big block chevy with full headers and no muflers... talk about shake the ground...

 

The guys who drove these in the late 60's must have had a set that clanked when they walked.... very little aerodynamics and alot of horsepower...

[strotter]

OK, I've got two:

 

1. When I was a kid, I lived out in the boonies of central California. If you havn't been there, be assured that there are for sure boonies in Cali, and most of 'em are right in the middle, where it's farm country, and I lived in the middle of *that*, 10 miles from the nearest town. The story: I remember laying in my bed, summertime, too hot to sleep, late late at night, quiet like a city person never knows. Kind of lonely when you're 10. Then somewhere off in the distance there'd be this noise: we're talkin' miles here, not blocks. It would rise and fall, rise and fall, a howling or growling or scream, you couldn't place it at first. Maybe an airplane, maybe an animal. I'd listen hard 'cause I knew what it was: this beautiful blue car. A convertible, which we local kids eventually identified as a Ferarri Daytona. With straight pipes. There was this rancher, see, who had a taste for the finer things, including cars and liquor: for cars, it was the Daytona; for liquor, it was after the sun went down. He'd drive into town, all conservative and legal-like, and get a snoot full. Then he'd make the run back to the homestead wide-open redline all the way. There were two corners he'd have to slow down for, then he'd get on it back up to cruising speed, which was in fifth (I know, 'cause I counted every time he went past). Did it for years. I'll never forget that incredible, wild sound in the middle of a hot night in the country, laying on my bed and just - dreaming. Memory not going away soon.

 

2: Later, in my teens, I worked as a valet in a parking garage. This drop-dead-gorgeous legal secretary would come in at 9:00 am every day with her metal-flake gold, big-block, TH-400'd T-topped '71 Corvette. One of those that *thumped" and squatted the rearend a bit when you dropped it in gear, idling at, what, 500 rpm. Dub Dub Dub - pause - Dub Dub Dub - pause - Dub Dub Dub. We'd park the cars when the customer dropped them off, and deliver the cars when the customer returned. Darn the luck, she always loitered for a few minutes to check her hair when she dropped her car off, so we had to be nice and just *park* the thing, never a moment of fun. But when 5:05 rolled around, the show would begin: she'd come in, all tired and cranky from her secretary day, tight dress and stiletto high heels looking just right and a bit sweaty, drop into the car and, without a word of thanks or good day, head out the door to the freeway onramp. There was a light there, so she had to wait for it, and so did we, and when the green popped she'd just ever so gradually push her foot to the floor and go. She wouldn't actually break traction, she'd just hook up and be gone, with that big-block just growling howling like some giant, angry tiger. You could hear the intake rush at 100 yards, over the exhaust, and the tires chirp chirp chirp going over the crosswalk lines. She'd catch significant scratch going into second, but by then she was cresting the ramp so the sound was muted; but you could hear her for quite some time as she picked it up to freeway speed and beyond. Everybody would watch, both us and the customers, and when she was gone we'd all turn around and get back to our jobs and lives. But that sound reverberated in us, the unbelievable power of the car, the beauty of the woman, the smell of the gas and oil, the echoes off the concrete walls, all of it together. Never forget that one, either.

[Peternell]

Injected Alcohol dragster

 

OR

 

the 4 radial engines of the restored B-17 that flew overhead not long ago