gixxsu

Hi Guys,

please excuse this stupid question. But I'm comfuse when people on the board is refering to "the exhaust making a droning noise".

What exactly is "Droning"? Do they mean the vibration of the exhaust and the sound it creats when it is vibrating. I guess what I want to know is does the "dronging" noise sound anything like a lose heat shield.

Thanks,
Gx

johninator

I believe they are referring to the "whooohhh..." noise while cruising. I guess it should be the noise around the 2500 to 4500 RPM range. I personally don't like that noise while cruising since I cant hear the radio or a conversation with my passenger. It gets annoying after a while. I did an exhaust system with "droning" on my $500 car before, and I thought that it was the coolest thing in the world back then. It sounded powerful, hehe. I don't mind the loud deep powerful sounding exhaust note at wide open throtle or at higher RPMS but not while cruising or idle.

heffergm

When people talk about droning, they're not talking about a loose heat shield. They're talking about an exhaust vibration that is constant and very annoying... typically the result of a loud aftermarket exhaust and no resonator (which is what cancels out the harmonics that cause droning).

xviper

Droning has nothing to do with your heat shields. That is just a mechanical rattle/buzzing.
Exhaust droning is both an auditory sensation and a "feeling" you get from the sound vibrations hitting your body (mostly your head). It is at a frequency, volume and tonal quality that is most annoying to the driver.
Imagine putting a metal bucket over your head and letting a big bumble bee loose inside. You'll hear it and you'll feel it.

TrueDrezzer

Most of the time the droning is constrained to a certain small range of rpm. Driving a bit faster or slower can make a big difference in your sanity on long trips.

I find that keeping the car at 7000rpm in 6th for long trips on the Autobahn is rather pleasant, but anything above 7500rpm and everything just gets too loud as the top buffets a lot, too.

///Robin

xviper

If we drove at 7000 rpm in 6th for long trips, we'd be arrested.

gixxsu

let me clairify, what i meant to say was, is the droning sound of the exhaust sounds anything like the noise a lose heat shield makes at certain rpm.

Road Rage

Droning is an exhaust resonance - ever heard a bad subwoofer setup, or juke-box bass? It is that repetitive, undamped, booming bass sound that irritates you at a stoplight in the clapped-out Camaro next to you.

Or a pipe organ's 32' low C.

Same principle - in a car, it results from many things, including the cylinder arrangement, the angle of the heads, inline or Vee-, pipe diameter and length, etc. Every car has its resonance, or drone. Honda tuned the S2000's OEM echaust to flow very well, and yet not be obnoxious or tiring. This is done using Helmholtz resonance science, and the dreaded resonator, which gets a bum rap on the Internet.

I want my sports car to sound like one, so I am dropping $1500 clams for "cosmetic sound". Maybe a pony or two.

The drone on the S2K seems to be in the 3200-4000 ROM range, which is very heavily trafficked in day to day and cruise situations. If the Mugen drones, i will wear hearing protectors, since droning can affect your hearing, and has been shown to temporarily raise blood pressure, and increase driver fatigue.

TrueDrezzer

Incidentally, cruising at 220kmh does not guzzle gas as much as I had expected. It was somewhere in the low 20s (which of course only lasts around 2 hours!)

If you find the car drones badly at say 4000rpm, you can probably assume that it will drone to some extent at multiples of that frequency, i.e. 8000.

Kinda like fretting a guitar at the 12th fret and strumming, then go to fret 11 or 13 and the sound disappears.

///Robin

Road Rage

I would imagine that at 8000 RPM exhaust drone would be just part of the overall "Noise experience". Wind would dominate.

I am not so sure that the harmonic effect you describe holds true in engines.