I was on my way home from work today and saw a red Viper ripping through traffic in the opposite direction while I was waiting at a red light.
I turned the stereo down and lowered the window as he was approaching.
As he passed me doing about 60-MPH and accelerating HARD I couldn’t help notice how AWFUL the exhaust note sounded.

Vipers aren’t too common out my way and I’m lucky if I get to see ONE every 4 or 5 months.

I sometimes lurk on the Viper boards and I notice a lot of owners have aftermarket exhaust systems in their mod signatures.

Does it sound like this because it’s 10-cylinders or is it something in the stock emissions system?

Shawn S

 

A paralegal down in Shrewsbury bought one last year and I went out in it ofcourse as the passenger. It's loud and very raspy / almost lawnmower ish. I didn't necessarily think it's bad but I do notice that alot of the viper guys do have aftermarket. It seems to be a love hate thing, same with the M3, some people think it sounds like a dirtbike.

 

Maybe its a Dodge thang???? :P

 

yeah i noticed the same thing the other day? I was expecting like a deep rumbling roar or something. It sounded kinda pingy, ricy kinda thing. Strange.

 

My understanding (and also contrary to popular belief) is that 10 cylinder engines are not deep sounding like 8 cylinder engines are. They are higher pitched.

 

The side piped version Vipers sounded better than the 96 and up rear exit models. For whatever reason, the way they channeled off the exhaust pipes (it sounds like two 5cylinder engines, instead of a V10).

Of course, this is easily solved by adding an aftermarket exhaust......my car sounds like a race car, loud as hell (deep rumble).

 

LOL, i believe the Viper had many complaints when it was new for sounding like a "UPS truck"

no kidding!

 

What mods have you done to yours?

The one I saw today was a GTS hardtop. Red with white stripes.
Looked new, but I'm not an expert on them....yet .

Shawn S

 

lets see some viper pics beltfed.

 

The new viper coming out has the exhaust crossed at a point prior to the mufflers that is supposed to get rid of that sound and give it a better note.

 

come out to Route 110 in Farmingdale tonight for the muscle car meet...i'll b there...so will BSX181

 

Maybe the new Viper sounds better

 

i agree, my friend's neighbor has a viper w/ aftermarket exhaust. i shouldn't be asking what sounds worse, that or a civic dx w/ a ricey muffler, but it does sound nasty...

 

It's something to do with 2 cylinders firing at the same time (one from each side). From my understanding, it's like 2 - 5 cylinder engines running in perfect syncronization (correct me if I'm wrong...).

So, what you hear is one cylinder in each exhaust pipe. I've never heard one cracked open before, but from my understanding it sounds like a tractor. My question, like yours is... whhhaaattzzzuppp with that?

 

Above anything about the CL-S, I'll take the sound of my V6 running at 6500 revs under load...

 

The older Vipers were said to sound like UPS trucks because, as was mentioned, it was basically a 5cyl on each side and not an smooth-sounding I5, but half a V10.

 

Sounds like you saw a GTS Final Edition.....the last 360 GTS made for 02 were Red/white stripes.

Mods I have are K&N intake & Smooth tubes (from the ACR), exhaust, hiflow cats, shortthrow shifter. Was going to do headers but decided not to.

From guys who drove the new Viper SRT, they said it sounds better than the GTS......but it still needs and aftermarket exhaust, not just for the sound but supposidely changing the exhaust on the 03 will yield a nice power increase (more than usual).

Scooter,
I would go to Farmingdale tonight, but have to go to Jersey.

 

I know you guys don't care about dodge but if you didn't know(this is a little old)
Dodge is coming out with a 215 HP Neon(it's a turbo 4-cylinder). (i think to compete against the Civic Si, Focus SVT,and Mazda MP3) anyhow I know I hate Dodge just as much as you guys but that little Neon will boogie. you add a few ricer options(like custom turbo maybe a CAI maybe that neon will be hanging with you.

2003 Acura CL-S 30 Grand(Approximately)
Comptech S/C 5 Grand
Comptech header 1 Grand
4 SSR 18's rims 2500 bucks
your face when you get hammered by a neon: Priceless

 

I did the Skip Barber driving school thing. I believe the vipers that they used had side pipes. I thought it sounded fine, both watching them and driving them. It may be a matter of preference because I don't like after market exhaust notes on 4 and 6 cylinder engines. I prefer the rumble of a V8. I'm happy with my acura being quiet.

 

NOTHIN ..AND I MEAN NOTHIN....SOUNDS LIKE A FERRARI!!!!

 

I just saw some cutaway drawings of a viper from a Car & Driver issue and I think it may shed light on the problem with the Viper exhaust.

Apparently the old Viper exhaust side-pipes were coming off the headers and strait to the same side, with no H-pipe type thing to connect them.

The new Viper exhaust routes the pipes off the headers and then under the car to the opposite side exhaust so that when they cross there is an H-pipe connecting them.

Now....I don't know a thing about how exhaust works and the H-pipe is a turny-clicky thing as far as I'm concerned, but I do know that they made a dramatic change to the exhaust pipe length and routing just so they could get an H-pipe-clicky-thing in it.

Maybe someone who knows something about this can determine if the H-pipe will make it sound better or smoother or why its even so important.

 

i tihnk v10s are usually deep, i believe dodge puposefully damped the sound because noise voilations. also the exhuast system attemots to make the car more eviromentally sound, and in turn dampens the sound a lot.

i worked on a project to electronically dampen the sound for the 2003 viper because dodge was conerned about noise laws in cities

 

The H-Pipe bastically is a pipe shaped like an "H", go figure, huh?!? It connects the two sides of the engine together (via the exhaust). The reason for it is you can pick up extra HP by equallizing the load between mufflers. As for sound, it'll mix the L and R engine banks, so you won't hear each side separately (a 5 cylinder engine in this case), but a 10 cylinder engine.

You're right about the noise problem. The Viper and Corvette both moved the exhaust to the center of the car to "reduce" the amount of noise produced. Basically, when driving by a highway sound violation setup (a microphone on the side of the road), the exhaust at the center back of the vehicle is farther from the mic, so it sounds quieter. That way they can crank out more HP with a free flowing exhaust, and still pass noise levels.

 

Good explanation Wires.
It does seem like having an H-pipe would smooth out the exhaust note.

BTW, The drawing I saw didn't have the exhaust tip moved to the center rear of the car.

Rather, it had the left side exhaust move down the left side of the car, curve under and across to the right side, and then exit at the right side just aft of the door. Similarly, the right side exhaust ran down the right side, then made a curve under and across to the left side, where it exited.
It seemed like from the outside, it would look just like it used to, but from the inside the pipes crossed and switched places.

Where the pipes were crossing each other to exit at the opposite side, there was an H-pipe.

 

Interesting. Is that of the new model? I know the last couple of years had them centered under the rear license plate. I know it's more efficient if an "X" pipe is used instead of an "H", so maybe that's what they were doing.... :P

 

hate dredging up old threads, but was searching for exhaust...wondering if it adds any hp, planning headers and don't want the exhaust cat back sound...but

The viper doesn't sound good because of the firing order used on these things.

V6s are smooth inline of course, as well as at 60 degrees, v8s run nice at 90 degrees, V10s would need to be 72 degrees to run smooth; however, that's an f'd up casting and is not used.

Dodge using some herky jerky firing order (90 degrees), the trucks sound even worse than the viper. The ford uses a more traditional firing order on their V10, also at 90 degrees, but uses a balance shaft on top of the motor with the over head cam to smooth things out.

But when it makes as much power as it does, who the hell cares. Sure if i were putting together a mucle car, the chevy 502 crate motor would be my poison, but from the factory there's nothing even close (for the money i guess)

Joe

 

I read that the old Viper engine (from older GTS and the RT/10) had a separate exhaust coming out of each cylinder bank, and due to the firing order, it sounded like a I5 instead of a V10. They said the new engine in the Viper was designed to sound like a true V10. Haven't heard the new exhaust note, but should be better.

BTW, I kind of like the old exhaust note of the older Viper. Pretty unique sounding