Making a Barra sound good?

[ford71V8]

Neighbour across from us thought my 250 XY was a V8. He was a Datsun nut though.

[1970XW351]

When I had my extractors split and a twin two inch system put on my 2v many moons ago, I fair soiled myself with delight when the exhaust chap fired her up for me and gave it a cheeky rev. PHWOOOAAARRR!

[mick taylor]

Originally Posted by 1970XW351

I dunno, prior to the crossflow in the 70's you could get a decent noise out of the humble falcon six... It just seems that the pursuit of performance and efficiency have made it that much harder to get a nice noise to go along with it... Damn progress!

I don't mind most barras I hear out and about and some do sound rather splendid.. But, there is the odd droning, farting, head scratching shocker as well. I'll stick with the older gen tech I think.


Cheers, Tony

Yes them old Log ford 6 sounded the best of all the ford 6cyl
But you do know they are not a V8.

Best sounding V8 is the dual exhaust 351 Cleveland with stock exhaust manifolds not to loud or quiet is the one for me, so you can hear that sweet engine noise as well.

I had a XC Falcon 6 with extractors and dual exhaust but quiet.

[roddy1960]

Turn the key...enough said ...joking aside they sound pretty good .. funnily enough owning my XR6 and also the dear ol' AU Futura both basically stock exhausts I reckon the old SOHC Intech has a more throaty sound for some reason ..Only my opinion though . After that the Barra sounds nice and of course is way quicker to drive ..goes without saying ...

[DFB FGXR6]

Originally Posted by roddy1960

Turn the key...enough said ...joking aside they sound pretty good .. funnily enough owning my XR6 and also the dear ol' AU Futura both basically stock exhausts I reckon the old SOHC Intech has a more throaty sound for some reason ..Only my opinion though . After that the Barra sounds nice and of course is way quicker to drive ..goes without saying ...

Nice to see you back Roddy!

As for the Intech vs Barra (talking about the N/A's here), the SOHC gets really nasty above 3500 - 4000 rpm, as in very thrashy and strained with a lot of valve train whine. The Barra doesn't quite have the same deep sound at low revs but has more snarl up top and without that valvetrain thrash.

[rajaclub]

The main factor to the "bad" sound is the design of the turbo manifold. The stock manifold is a cast iron log style manifold with very short runners and exhaust pulses that merge as soon as they leave the cylinders. If you listen to sound clips of cars that have tubular style manifolds you'll see that the sound is alot cleaner and higher pitched but also more agressive. The Barra GT350 from Adam LZ's videos also has a tubular style manifold which gives it that sound you notice.

Take a look at this video of an XR6T with a 6boost low mount manifold
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7rFqr-HUfE

[XRtowcar]

Saw an FG G6E which had a lot of boost and substantial upgrades. Went like stink but sounded like an oil drum rolling downhill with a set of spanners loose inside.