Making your exhaust sound louder and deeper can be as simple as just replacing your muffler. Many owners of cars with V8 engines do not want to muffle the roar of their engines and always look for ways to improve the sound of their vehicles. The basic muffler design you are looking for to make your car sound louder is a straight-through muffler. Mufflers designed to silence engine exhausts loop the exhaust gases once or twice inside the muffler to deaden the sound. Some owners have found that using a straight pipe instead of putting in a replacement muffler is enough. With V8 engines, you can also put a cross-pipe just after the exhaust manifold collectors to give your engine exhaust a different sound. The sound will be much louder but this may be what you are looking for.
The distinctive V8 sound comes from the uneven exhaust pressures on either side of the engine, which is a direct result of having an odd firing order. The very distinct exhaust sound made by a crossplane V8 is from the irregular firing order. Crossplane refers to the crankshaft design used in most automotive V8 engines. These crankshaft designs provide smoother running because of the large crankshaft counterweights that are employed to balance out the vibrations of the engine. Opposite to a crossplane is a flat-plane crank that is often used in high performance V8s for their high-revving capabilities in exchange for rougher running.
Each time two cylinders fire on the same side in sequence, the two exhaust pulses create high exhaust pressure and noise which can be heard out the tailpipe. This repeats later in the firing order on the other side of the engine. Often times, balance pipes are used to equalize the large exhaust pressure difference between each side of the engine. The pressure equalization improves exhaust scavenging, especially at low RPM. This is why after the mufflers, succeeding exhaust system mods will include a larger diameter or differently-design cross pipe. The final exhaust system modification you can perform is to replace your V8 engine’s exhaust manifold with headers, which when properly designed will improve horsepower and give your engine a more aggressive sound. Some “advice” you will hear or read online is about removing the catalytic converters to produce a louder sound from your engine. While this may be so, cats are a legal requirement to operate a motor vehicle and it is irresponsible to remove them.
