Have you ever wondered why some types of engines sound "good" or more pleasing to the ear than others?
Not just the Hertz of the sound but the spacing of the firing pulses. Most American V-8's sound good they have a pleasing sound, same with Harley v-twins...Most Jap cars with fart cans are just loud...
I thought that you may find this interesting, especially Gabor and Jake.
This uses the honda VFR as an example..

My favorite one was the 1950 Ford V8 flat head idling. brudin brudin brudin................

I loved the way my VFR 750 Sport bike's sounded........Most of the Ducati's sound this way as well.

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Interesting explanation Ellwood .... of course I had to find a video of the actual motorcycle and hear it .... cool !!!

Ray .... I like the Ford Flatheads too , and they were the only V8 I could get to run so smooth I could stand a nickle on edge on the breather and it wouldnt fall over ... it was a 1949 with the distributor on the front of the crank .... it was in a 6wheel drive truck that I used for hunting and drinking haaaa.

Flatheads Forever !!!!

Or was that drinking and hunting?

Here is another..


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqatMdB5vu4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5ZEYMl9VIs

HAAAA ... yes it was .... plus some drinking and fishing ..... I cant believe the stuff a guy could get away with in the 1970's .... but we were careful renegades , never hurt anybody including ourselves.

The sound of my beloved Subaru boxers (and VW's) is caused by the unequal pipe lengths from the primary manifold pipes to the collector.... so the 2 pipes on the right side go down and straight back to the cat... the pipes on the left come down from the head, back 10"... then across 14" and into the cat....

You prolly all know the Subaru sound, but the killingback imp has 4 equal pipe headers so it doesnt sound like a Subaru... it just sounds like any 4 cylinder (all be it, a fast one)

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More exhaust music stories .... a V8 by design has its own exhaust notes along the lines of a Harley V2 X 4 because of the necessary crank design ...... a 6 cylinder inline is considered a self balanced engine because always a pair of pistons going up and down in harmony to counteract each other and the firing order is precisely 120 degrees apart ... something like that anyway ... and an inline 6 with equal length tuned headers has a nice exhaust note ....

... but best of all is an inline 8 cylinder .... wish I had recorded it .... 1949 Packard 356 cu in straight 8 with a 3 speed standard transmission ... a real highway car ... bought it for $1,800 drove it 8,000 miles and sold it for $4,300 . Only repair was a fuel pump , could not get a new one so I bought a 6 volt positive ground electric that cost almost $200 at the time.

That straight 8 was theeeeee smoothest running engine I have ever seen

This picture is not my actual car but mine was exactly like it except not quite so perfect .... it looked like a pregnant elephant .... if farmer jim sees it he will want one. Look at the length of the hood .... the engine filled up the whole space .... looked like an engine out of a big old farm tractor

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Found a picture of a straight 8 Packard engine .... weighed 1000 pounds , had 9 main bearings

Look at the size of the starter .... could make a huuuuuuge pre-rotator out of that one haaaaa

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Some Flathead music for Ray


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V8-60 add injectors headers & magneto My dad used them in Midgets for Ascot Raceway, Corona Speedway & El Toro
or any other asphalt or dirt track.

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Buick straight 8 with equal length headers


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When I heard that IMP I knew I had heard that sound before ..... back in the 1960's we cleared racetacks on our city lake and held ice race competitions and all kinds of cars we had never seen before showed up such as Hillman Imps

There were even some tiny little Honda cars with 2 strokes ... until then we didnt even know Honda built cars .... that was years before Honda became a big player in the car scene ... thanks for the memories !!!!!

Did he ever race at Winnipeg Speedway ??? ... midget racing (dirt track) every Sunday evening back then . Most cars were out of town and some from California who did the racing circuit all over North America

Some real crowd pleasers , usually from California ..... coming out of the 4th corner they would sometimes do a 6" wheelie as they headed down the straightaway.

Not much racing around here any more.

yellow car #17 he started in 1944 odd from Washington state. then CRA- USAC- in California after Korea still car #17

A 3 day coma after a crash in Indy mid 60s a night before the 500 they had a midget event - He had spot 32 in the 500 with an Edmonds car but some one stuffed him a wheel that night before......
He also owned CRA in the 80s & 90s

at one time he owned 8 midgets one roadster and two sprints (Mom pressured him to own not drive)

http://www.hotrodhotline.com/feature/20 ... 3577A1.jpg

Harleys sound like Harleys because they are basically like 2 cylinders from a radial engine... as aposed to a V twin with both rods each attaching to the same pin... the Harley has a master rod attached to the one pin and an articulated rod attached to the master rod.... they both take up the same 'footprint' of one lone rod..... unlike a Japanese V twin with the cylinders offset slightly for 2 rods connecting to one wide pin, side by side... that is why the bottom of the Harley cylinder is so narrow compared to a V twin with 2 complete rods...

Yep a Harley is just a radial engine with all but two cylinders removed...That is why I used to run Areoshell 100 in mine, it hated synthetic oil, it just burned it, Aeroshell, no smoke ran great.
Mine was a 1973 ironhead, cast iron cylinders and heads, had to do the valves every 15,000 miles, or about every 2 years. They have very long rods also that have some very extreme angles,
The Japs had to really take some steps down in technology to try to get the harley sound..