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[Tony@ASAPGrfx]

Originally Posted by Kappster Having gone out with the car club a few times on trips I have heard first hand the Coffee can RA...RA sounds inherent of the In-line 4. Top notch Headers, cat-backs in place, the sound accept for tone and volume is still that of a "Pissed off weed-whacker" like kids nowadays running around with their older lowered Honda's with the coffee can attached to the rear. Their cars are like Honda's trying to sound like a Harley's. Lucky my stock exhaust does a good job of hiding that. Looking on the net for answers Cuz I would like my car to sound as good as it looks, I found that all 4 bangers don't sound the same. The WRX is said to have a very cool burble/rumble sound, The old VW also had a non Jap sound too. Both the flat 4 and in-line 4 engines fire every 180 degrees. Yet the flat 4 has a much cooler sound. Much has been wrote on this issue and is believed to be because the flat 4 exhaust has un-even length primary tubes. On one power bank long primary tubes run all the way across the block to the meet short tubes on the other power bank and then to a collector to the turbo or the exhaust depending on what you have. Also the pattern of firing is different than you might expect. It fires on one power bank then the other. so its Bang...Bang ....pause....pause on one side and the other side is pause....pause.... Bang... bang. Harley's have a uneven cadence . The engine does not fire every 360 degrees it fires at 405 degrees and 315 degrees (amazing that they even run) giving that better than a V-8 sound. A sound just begging for the throttle to be blipped or punched. So all can hear its intoxicating masculine rumble. Aftermarket company's do make a equal length header for the WRX and the car does lose the rumble. Interesting enough the factory un-equal header still does a better job over all, power wise. I think it would be very interesting if some aftermarket company would come up with a header that would really change the way the in-line 4 sounds. A sound that taunts you to hit the gas and let everyone know, thats a Pontiac.

Interesting. I will note that my center exit system from Solo Performance changed the way my car sounds to a nice beefy note. I think the exhaust system plays a huge part of how the car sounds. With the center exit, the sound is split into two and comes around the differential then back into a small muffler. I think that plays a part in how the sound bounces around and makes for a unique sound. I think it sounds better than dual exhaust setups.

T