Exhaust Question

Maintenance/Repairs
1

I have a '94 Pontiac Bonneville 3.8l V-6. I recently installed a Flowmaster muffler w/tips to make it sound loud and beefy. It sounds ok, but not what I’m looking for. What do I need to do that’s relatively cheap but works to make it louder and beefier?

2

Not being very experienced with engines so small, I would say that there is nothing you can do to make that tiny engine sound beefy. If the flowmaster has any baffles at all, you won’t get anything out of it. If it has no baffles and you still don’t get any more, then you probably will never get the deep sounds that you are looking for. I had no muffler on an engine that size and the catalytic converter muffled it so well that I didn’t even know that there was no muffler. The car was a 76 Buick Skyhawk and it was quick. I forgot the car and can’t see it while typing this, but if it is a Bonneville, keep it waxed and be happy with the shine, it won’t win a lot of races.

3

I hate to burst your bubble, but you aren’t really going to be able to make a 3.8 V6 sound “loud and beefy”. No fancy exhaust system will change that…about the best you can hope for it to make it sound like a really LOUD V6 engine, and nobody thinks a loud V6 is beefy.

4

Do what the Harley Boys do and remove the muffler completely. Let the cat be the only muffler.Or take it ALL THE WAY and remove the cat(s) too! Your father was able to buy a device called a “cut-out” where you could pull a dash control and open the exhaust ahead of the muffler. Unknown to todays wimp-rodders

5

My son has a 3.8 in his Camaro with a Borla exhaust and it sounds pretty tough, but it’s not loud; just a low growl.

Since you want loud about all you can do is yank the Flowmaster and throw a Cherry Bomb on it. And a Bonneville no less.

6

Removing a catalytic converter is a federal crime, and really shouldn’t be advocated on these forums.

7

yeah, Caddyman was sent to jail for 13 years for that post. He just got out yesterday…

[/sarcasm]

5 Likes
8

You’d need to put a V8 in it. That puny V6 is not going to sound “beefy” no matter what you do to it.

9

I wonder if the 1994 Bonneville this thread was about in 2007 is even still running.

1 Like
10

I don’t, it doesn’t matter to me if that old car is still in service.

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11

Thanks for coming in 13 years late, mom

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12

Haha, blame the post aggregator feature of this site…it seems to throw in a decade-old post along with 5 recent ones…and I don’t always check the dates

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13

To paraphrase Tom Lehrer:
A muffler is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.
No engine with fewer than 8 cylinders puts out what IMHO is a good sound,
so I’d rather have near silence than a “fart can” drone.

1 Like