550 high pitch headers

Ok children. I am with Taz. Headers scavenge better with a proper collector. Length of tubes dictates the rpm at which they have maximum effect HP and TQ . SOUND? No they do not make a vehicle louder or sound much better,however the individual cylinder pulses are more pronounced. Staight pipe after cats is where I am going. Hopeful for in my case to get rid of the Buick sound.The headers in this thread suck. They should be coated inside and out to enhance performance and reduce heat transfer to surrounding components and reduce corrosion. Cats dampen enough sound that mufflers are not necessary . A Ferrari should not sound like a Buick. If I am not satisfied with the sound of straight pipes after the stock cats.High flow cats are next while still remaing legality. Lastly it will be headers and cat syms w/o cats.High flow cats/no cats and syms will probably not be necessary unless you want to be heard comming 2 miles away. GTS Bruce

 

My thinking is that the shape of the exhaust pipework and the various crimps and restrictions are what makes the music...just like a musical instrument. Straight through makes noise; the right shape makes music. So we are all on the quest.

I have been experimenting with sound as well. Installed straight center pipes and combined with Tubi 1st Gen my 550, the exhaust note is nice and gas speed is noticeably faster but it's way too loud. So I removed the mufflers and had my hot rod shop engineer a valve system that can be controlled manually. Manually here means I find the right setting then lock it in place; and can always revert to wide open or fully closed by spending 2 minutes under the car. The Tubi tips don't provide enough clearance for vacuum controlled OEM type valves.

I haven't installed the mufflers as yet and my frozen shoulder is not cooperating. So will have to wait a while before I hear how it sounds.

Anyway, the solution was to have the shop install an adjustable valve on the inner tailpipe. To do that they cut a small rectangular hole on the top outer surface of the Tubi. First observation is that the 1st gen Tubi muffler is a can within a can. There is an inner can and it is separated from the outer polished layer by thermal insulation.

A threaded bushing was welded on the top surface of the inner can. A hole was drilled into the outer and inner cans from the bottom in order to place a welded threaded bushing. A long bolt fitted with lock nut just at the bolt head was inserted from the bottom of the can screwed through the welded bushing, through both outer and inner can surfaces at the bottom of the muffler, through the "ears" of the flap, and into the threaded welded top bushing. (Note: The flap was inserted through the tailpipe and held in place while the bolt was screwed through. Flap is positioned just at the inner end of the tailpipe. The flap has two "ears" which contained threaded bores to accept the long bolt in addition to very small bores perpendicular to the bolt in order to insert locking grub screws. The grub screws prevent the long bolt from rotating in the ears during adjustment.) The flap is just smaller than an interference fit. Some gases will bypass the flap when fully closed but just a tiny amount. The adjusting bolt and lock nut and the welded up hole are the only visible additions to the muffler. Bolt and nut are in polished stainless. The top rectangular hole was welded shut and the surface brushed.

Stay tuned for results. Here are some photos.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Installed the modified Tubi mufflers. Here is the cold start. A little more music (to my ear anyway). The car will get noticed but it's a pretty note, so perhaps I'll get a pass. Will upload more video on the road in a few days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2asTsPWUOL4

 

Terry- Sounds good and hopefully she will not drone at cruise. Funny thing is, all the exhaust systems sound different when they are fully warmed. Makes sense, because on a faucet you can hear a change in tone when the faucet heats up from hot water.

 

The speed of sound is proportional to the square root of temperature. A hot exhaust (or a hot saxophone!) therefore sounds higher in pitch because it resonates at a higher frequency.

Stefano

 

Sounds amazing!

IMO for a Maranello to wear this sound it needs to be ''Scuderia'd''. Shed some weight, more aggresive body work (think Saurus 550 minus wing), different wheels and sportier interior (sport seats, replace some leather with alcantara).

That'll suit a Maranello a lot more with this exhaust .

It's been a dream of mine in the last few years to create a 550 ''GTO'', but going into the level of detail that our own Trev has done with his 360 CS manual. A noise like the 599 GTO was part of the plan, and the idea was to go with a custom 6-1 exhaust manifold. Now I know it's 100% possible to create such sound.

Thanks OP!

 

My 550 sounds like this. Eurospec... factory non-catalyst.

 

I find that hard to believe...could you provide a video clip?

 

I absolutely will when I can. I'm away from home 5 days of the week. But yes, as soon as I can coordinate someone to help shoot a drive-by during one of the two-day windows that I'm home, I'll do it.

I had sold this car in 2013 and regretted it day one. I tracked it back down to a Ferrari Chat member... Old Shep is his member name , and nagged him until he sold it back to me just this January

He can even vouch for the sound. From the factory the car has no cats or mid-pipe resonators.

 

Hi Guys,
Got something you all maybe interested in. let me know what you think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGBwOtHBtFY
Steve in NY

 

Nicholas- According to the parts catalogs, the non-catalyst 550s still came with the center muffler/resonator. Is it possible someone swapped it out for straight center pipes before you owned her?

Even so, the non-catalyst 550s still had the 3-1-2-1 collector system, so hard to believe it will sound like a 6-1 set of headers.

 

Agreed with Terry.

I've watched and listened to every clip of every exhaust on the internet I could find. Even search in different languages.

The only ones that sound F1 like are due to the 6-1 headers. There's the ones from Japan, and Fabios system.

 

The only way a sophisticated gentleman's GT can sound like a F1 car is with mufflers with flaps so the front part can be with little restriction, and when the flaps open at high poweroutput and revs, it can scream. A Maranello loose its exclusiveness if it is too loud on idle and normal driving.

 

Fabio's system is valved with a controller.

Three states:
1. Valves open. Full sound.
2. Normal operation. Full sound when under load.
3. Valves closed. For tracks with noise restrictions and not pissing off your neighbours when you come and go.

As for sophisticated gentleman's GT...go buy an Aston Martin.

 

I have driven Fabio's car and I mean that is the ultimate system, simple as that! Gentlemen with some crazyness!!

 

Nice! My system arrives next week. Will have it installed before summertime...aiming for May.

 

I'd have to weigh in here on Nick's observation about the exhaust note on "our" 550: it wails! The audio at the beginning of this thread and the sound from Nick's car are practically identical. Nick will, I'm sure, post a video with good sound. I fell in love with that V-12 sound in 1964 at Sebring, and the 550 that Nick now owns was very close. I'm going to give Nick another year of ownership before I start nagging him to sell it back to me!

 

I'm sorry but I find it very hard to believe anything sounds close to the 6-1 header without doing the actual swap.

There's lots of exhaust setups that sound great on the 550/575...but only two that have the high pitch (frequency) wail of the 6 to 1 header system that is used on the 599 GTO or the F12.

Post sound clips and lets hear what's going on with Nicholas' Maranello

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8F9aqAGuWo&t=10[/ame]

 

Yep 100% agree.

Like Taz I also have seen just about any 550/575 related video there is available, it really is only the 6-1 setups that have the GTO type wail.

 

Perhaps. I just know that my car has no cats and no center resonator, so I thought my car was non-catalyst model. My VIN is ZFFZR49B000107602 if someone in Europe or with Eu resources wants to look it up. You can't find anything here on this VIN which makes it interesting when trying to insure it.

I was the 2nd owner... now the 4th owner lol! The 1st owner was a guy named James Diiorio. He is featured in this article from a time ago and you can see my (Old Shep's) red Maranello in his garage at the time of this article. Anyway, he raced the car religiously, so maybe... just maybe he did something??

http://www.mazdamotorsports.com/pdfs/fuel_2008_jan_feb.pdf

All I know is my car wails, and it is more pronounced in tunnels or under a nice stretch of overpass.

I got home late last night, and tried first thing today to go out solo and get some footage / sound clips. My results are disappointing because again... no help. I just stuck my GoPro onto the trunk of the car and went for a spin on the highway... punching it under some bridges to catch nothing but wind noise! Kinda figured that would be my result, but I HAD to try because I want you guys to see!!

It's supposed to snow here tomorrow, starting tonight. But in case the weather man is up to his usual tricks (and we get nothing), I'll go out again, but this time mount my GoPro inside because while riding today I was thinking that with the windows down today the sound was pretty good and that maybe the camera will pick it up better.

This weekend was short notice in order to get someone to tail / film me. Monday I'm sending my fob to Gobble for a clone, but should have the fob back by the time I'm back to town on Friday evening. I'm checking around this weekend to line up someone to accompany me next weekend so that I can get some good footage.

 

What Nick said.

There is no center resonator or cats: I had it up on a rack several times just looking at stuff. The car makes an incredible sound as the rpm's pass 5000...

 

Bill- No cats were OEM on early Euro 550s, straight center pipes were not from what the parts catalog says. Very easy for any good exhaust shop to make straight pipes, though.

But, then again, Ferrari tech data is often wide of the mark. Later 550s and early 575Ms all came with center mufflers/resonators. Lots of stuff here on FChat 8-10 years ago about straight center pipes vs X-pipes replacing that center cork.

 

I believe cars sold to Russia were without catalyzers from the factory. That's what I have heared. I have no proof that it is true though.

This car is without catalyzers, has straight middle pipes and Tubi rear mufflers without valves. He say there is no resonance/drone while driving. I love the sound!!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u3bZMlz9OXM

 

Sounds great but I'm skeptical on the Russian cars come without cats bit. Why would Ferrari make a different exhaust for such a small market?

 

Non-catalyst 550s were made for markets without wide access to unleaded fuel, with different lambdas and with collectors with no cats, collector part numbers 174077 and 174078. About half the price of the collectors with cats.