Italian exhaust

[ShotgunSymphony]

I have a sterling and want to put a new exhaust on it, it has the 1600cc. Is there enything out there that would give me a lamborghini/ ferrari sound to it?

[justcallmebob]

Yes, a nice new Ferreri or Lamborgini engine. Let us all know if you find an exhaust system that does this. Maybe something in a digital sound modification system. ... LOL

[hlwimmer]

i have an original abarth 2 tip muffler... for what its worth, its italian (made for the VW 1300-1600cc engine). its a 30 year old muffler and needs some TLC, but its original... yours for $50 plus shipping. my other abarth muffler sounds more like a porsche.
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/ ... 2334085657

[Shadowbug]

what gives those Italian cars their distinctive sound?

easy, 12 cylinders.
you'll never get that sound any other way

[[email protected]]

You can get that Italian sound if you use about twice as many German cylinders.

[madmike]

I was at a car show a year ago and a real Ferrari parked next to me When it left everyone was checkin it out but,,, It sounded like ass compaired to my almost open stinged(baffed without packing)an fully Merged

[Placerpuma]

Two into one, on each side will make a lot of noise. Not good for power but it will wake up everybody on the street when you leave for a Sunday morning car show.
I ran 914 pipes on my type 4 with a Monza tip, exiting in front of the rear tire. It was very loud.

[Marc]

...you'll never get that sound any other way

Oddly, a six (or even a three) can sound more like a twelve than an eight or a four does...while you can do weird things (a tri-Y system with unequal-length primaries, for example) which can deliver that unique crackle at certain RPM, they don't help performance.
The Abarth/Pacesetter/Monza style mufflers also don't help performance much, and their quality control has been spotty - poor fit is a common complaint. They do give a 4-tip look reminiscent of some classic Italian cars, but the illusion disappears as soon as the engine is fired up...and they're infamous for the twin-tips breaking off with fairly minor ground contact.
For my money the best combination for performance, quality, sound, ground clearance, and the all-important disguising of the VW engine in a kit car would be a "Sidewinder" system. Kind of a nuisance when it's time to adjust the RH valves, but worth it IMO.



Note that unless you have dual carbs, you need heatriser passages to feed the preheat pipe on the intake manifold to avoid hesitation on acceleration (not as big an issue in warm weather, but a real annoyance on a cool/damp morning) and most "performance" exhaust systems don't have them...even those which do, like "street" headers and Monzas, aren't as effective as the stock muffler at delivering preheat since they lack the positive flow caused by the pressure differential that's designed into the stocker - but they're better than nothing.
If you don't expect to be upsizing the engine anytime soon, do NOT buy any system with big pipes (or too big of a muffler, either) - in my experience, when the motor's too small to "fill up" the system the exhaust note is disappointing - and maybe even louder at low RPMs than a larger engine with the same exhaust.