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No, we can all afford a V8. It's the bits of car that go round it that cost the money.....
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"No, we can all afford a V8. It's the bits of car that go round it that cost the money....."
It's not even that. It's the potential repair costs.....
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Answering the original question: the human mind seeks harmony, and the inherently better balance of the boxer and V6, V8 engines is sweeter to the ear.
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Isn't it uneven firing intervals that give the V8 its signature woffle? We need LJKS to pronounce. Straight sixes have a very smooth character - not unlike the Chilean Carmenere I've just tried. Hic. Thank you to the Co-op.
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>>not unlike the Chilean Carmenere I've just tried
tried the 2003 yet ? Very nice and plentiful so a bit cheaper.
And if you're buying more than a single bottle, then Majestic Wines do a good selection of Chilean wines at Tesco-ish prices.
Don't drink it while you're driving though (Motoring link).
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I'm assuming that the word 'harmony' in the above post refers to equality and consistency rather than harmony in the musical sense. In musical terms, I've often wondered whether or not the offset, almost syncopated rhythmic feel of V8 engines (and don't forget those gorgeous lazy Harleys!) is where the attraction comes from.
I find when I'm writing music that rhythms with beats that play off each other cause a sense of tension and excitement as the listener tries to resolve the timing mentally, whereas a very straight predictable feel can often sink into the background and provide a better foundation for a catchy melody. Think of the way 'Money' by Pink Floyd, 'Golden Brown' by the Stranglers, and more recently 'Hey Ya' by Outkast keep you on edge because of the use of unusual or variable time signatures. There are a great many aspects to the mental processing of sound that are still a complete mystery to us, so the answer is probably buried in there somewhere :)
Interestingly enough, have you noticed how people often ascribe animal descriptions to V8s and more human ones to V6/12s? V8s growl and snarl, V6s scream. This is possibly down to the frequencies those engines tend to spin up to, with your typical V6 being more rev happy than a typical V8, but it's still food for thought - personification of sound sources is a fascinating field, especially for anyone who likes Hendrix... ;)
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If I was The Minister for Transport, I'd give everyone fuel vouchers enabling them to run a V8!
Bet you'd see a lot more smiling faces on the roads...
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"Answering the original question: the human mind seeks harmony, and the inherently better balance of the boxer and V6, V8 engines is sweeter to the ear."
Hmmm, but even a decades old wreck of a pushrod V8 can be resurrected from the dead and as soon as it coughs into smokey life, it sounds gorgeous! No Inline 4 engine can do that even when new.
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one of the nicest exhaust notes i've heard was from the old straight 6 triumph 2000 mk1, very distinctive in it's day, however my all-time favorite engine noise was the "haunting" idle of the 60's diesel buses, wish i could reproduce it in my petrol engine now!!.
billy.
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... and I always preferred the stag v8 to the rover v8
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The Subaru Impreza has a firing order of 1-3-2-4 so the pair of cylinders on one side fires then the other side. Plus the exhaust pipework from each side is of unequal lengths (on a WRX) which enahnces the 'lumpy' sound.
Mind you from what I gather there is a huge market in modifying the exhausts for these cars so presumably some are much louder than others.
Apologies for off-topic but I get mine on Monday (at long last) so I've been reading up....baseball cap and Flat Eric mascot at the ready!
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As a past and present owner of numerous V-8's and Harleys, I can only say the motor-boat burble of the former and the grandfather clock idle of the latter are balm to the bewildered soul and salve to the seething breast.
It has of course to do with the firing order and the relatively low revs at which these engines achieve their massive torque.
Personally I love the way you can floor a lazy V-8 with an auto box and just watch it consider the situation, gather its metaphorical skirts and storm effortlessly forward without much effort on your part, while lesser mortals are still shoving cogs around in their buzzboxes. Thank you Henry.
I also love blipping the throttle at the lights and feeling the whole car rock: even better with the old Mustang I just bought, the air cleaner protrudes through the hood, so the whole thing is disembodied and resembles something out of NASCAR.
My personal favorite explanation is that offered years ago by my then 9 year old daughter when I bought my original Mustang V-8 in Florida. "Daddy, I'm glad you bought this car". "Why's that, sweetheart?" "Well, it sounds like a PROPER car".
.....and hands up who knows that Harleys fire on both strokes of the piston? The Japanese have been close to motorcycling hara-kiri for years trying to emulate that sound with their Yamazuki rip-offs, without a shred of success. My local HD tech can get one to fire about every 2 seconds or so it seems but says it's no good for the oil flow.
Harleys are not that fast away from the lights compared with your average Hayabusa, but you tell me which one gets the attention....
...er, must go, my cocoa's ready.
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As mentioned, the reason is because of the firing order and the exhaust layout. By changing the exhaust manifold you can affect the way one cylinder's gases help to evacuate another and totally change the sound.
I agree about letting everyone have a V8, I've owned several and it's pure music! There is an alternative though... about 10 years ago I went to see a development from Lotus, they were working on an active noise system to reduce the noise levels inside the car. It worked by having microphones inside the car (I think it was a VW Golf) and a processor would then feed the anti-phase of this noise through the car's 4 radio speakers. They gave demonstrations, sitting in the car and it sounded normal, then pressing the switch and it being almost completely silent. The interesting by-product was that they could also feed any other noise through the speakers. Another switch was pressed and this Golf turned into a throbbing V8 Mustang! Because it sampled the engine's noise the V8 noise was in perfect phase and the 4 cylinder noise was gone. All us petrolheads were grinning wildly at this until the Lotus guy pressed another switch and it turned into a Porsche 911 - fantastic!
Revving the engine in the Golf produced a 911 / V8 Mustang revving inside the car and the Lotus engineer told us that at the factory they obviously had use of all the development Lotus cars to tootle around in but the most popular car on the fleet was a Citroen AX (I think) that had this active noise V8 feature.
After 10 years I'd expect to see this on cars now, I want one!
Gareth
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I'm more or less certain that I remember seeing this on Top Gear quite a few years back, but fitted to a production car (or at least, a car that was about to go into production). I think it might have been a Honda, possibly a Prelude. They showed the ordinary dull engine note being transformed realtime into a riproaring V6, and even mapped exhaust flashes into the sound :)
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As a V8 owner in a fairly low state of tune at a mere 155Bhp considering TVR got 400Bhp from the same engine I have no explanation as to why they sound so good. I'm not even sure on the firing sequence of the cylinders but I think that has something to do with it. I know owners that make perhaps the biggest difference to the sound going for the open air induction. That really gives us a much deeper breathing note and the sound of the air intake as it's revved sounds simply brilliant.
I get asked why I never want to replace the Radiomobile radio in mine with something more modern. Simple, I have my very own soundtrack attached to my right foot. A V8 on song raises a lot of smiles, I love blasting up an A-road in 3rd getting the full range out of the engine.
Modern V8s do still sound wonderful after hearing the latest Mustang V8 with tweaks bolted into a ZT260 but they do lack that deep bellow of older V8s. Speaking of pushrod V8s my neighbour has a 1950s Ford F-100 truck and that sounds superb, it's a very lazy V8 but it has a sound that really beats all other V8s I've heard. German V8's by comparison just sound really clinical as they go for damping and removing as much vibration as possible which I think detracts from the essence of a good V8.
As for the Triumph V8, best of luck with it, even with all the modifications to make this engine halfway reliable it sounds anaemic compared to the Rover variant. Although this does cause many almost vehement arguments with Stag owners many of them still replace the Triumph V8 with the Rover one.
And if the Government wants to give me vouchers for running a V8, I'll have the Rover V8 3.9 Efi with Stage II head please.
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Can't suggest a reason why they sound so good, but have to agree that they do.
I had an Aston V8 Vantage for a weekend last year, and the sound it made nearly brought tears to my eyes. I think it was 25% intake noise, 25% exhaust, 25% engine itself and 25% the gurgling of petrol disappearing from the tank :D
Did 250 miles in it, and cost myself over £60 in petrol, but it was SO worth it :D
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Cocoa and Viagra don't normally mix Growler???
Ah but yes I understand - The cocoa to send you to sleep and the Viagra to stop you rolling out of bed.......
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"Thank you Henry"
He came to them fairly late though, did't he? I seem to remember that he said (in Model-T days)he had no use for an engine that had more cylinders than a cow had teats...
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Henry Ford's introduction of the Ford V-8 has an interesting history. When the original L-head side-valve came out in 1932 in the middle of the Depression, it was built down to an affordable price. Unlike other V-8's available at the time it boasted a single block casting, enabling a very robust engine with lower production costs, something considered impossible at the time. Other V-8's relied on engine castings bolted together; more expensive and less reliable.
Ole Henry was teed off that Chevrolet were selling more cars than he was with their 6-cyl engines, and Ford had had no luck with their own experiments in this area -- long crankshafts prone to breaking etc. This I think was behind his disparaging remarks on 6-es, although of course Ford later went on to build them.
Those old flatheads are still remarkable engines. You can still get all the parts (original and performance) for them and they are eminently tuneable and very robust. To this day there are plenty of hot rods boasting a souped up 1950's L-head under the hood. Add a supercharger and you've got some serious muscle with great reliability.
I agree that modern V-8's sound insipid: my 2001 F-150 had no more than a subdued waffle, whereas my first V-8, a splendid ex-Belgian Embassy black 1954 Mercury Monterey (the first year Ford offered an OHV V-8) had the most wonderful exhaust rumble.
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NitroBurner gets my vote for next Chancellor and Kuang gets Minister of Sound!
Not all V8s sound the same though. Stand behind an XJ and you can hardly hear it, same with a BMW, Merc or Lexus V8. Stand behind my Camaro (a '96 US-spec) and you not only hear it, you can feel it in your chest. Blip the throttle and it gets better.
A typical american V8 sounds gorgeous up to about 5K rpm. A Ferrari V8 sounds pretty rough until it gets above 5K rpm, then Wow!
Did anyone hear the Corvettes at Le Mans last year?
Growler's mention of HD also reminds me of my dad's passion when he was younger. He had a number of bikes including an Ariel Sq 4 and a Vincent Black Shadow. He used to swear that one of them (can't remember which), fired once every lampost.
Kevin...
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Did anyone hear the Corvettes at Le Mans last year?
Oh God, yes. Tears are flowing as I type.
Talking of type, a different type of car I know, but the Bentleys just made a 'whoosh' didn't they? The quietest car there was also the fastest.
This is the future of European cars. Not quiet from sound deadening, but from a ruthless efficiency engineered by an 80% tax hike on fuel.
Why are American V8's the best sounding engines?
Why are rich people eccentric?
It's because they can afford to be.
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Ahhh...Le Mans...take a look at the rumoured support race details...distilled from www.groupc-gtpracing.com/news.htm - these will certainly sound nice!!
"Lovers of the fantastic 'Group C' period will be thrilled to hear that Group C/GTP Racing, the club running these cars in Europe, has teamed up with Motor Racing Legends to run a race on the Saturday morning of the main race at Le Mans in June 2004.
The race is for 40 cars (+ 4 reserves) with one driver of a maximum of 40 minutes duration, (no refuelling) allowing for wheels/tyres to be changed in the event of a late weather change.
There will an exciting mix of period cars from the Group C and GTP / IMSA family and is likely to include Aston Martin AMR1, Argo, Bardon, Ecosse, EMKA, Jaguar, Lancia, Nissan, Porsche, Spice, Tiga.
Le Mans devotees might be interested to visit www.clubarnage.com/yabbse/index.php
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