Raucous exhaust

[Han solo]

Good evening peeps.
Ok now the misfire issue is sorted on the millennium falcon on to the next little issue.
Anybody know if the 960 is generally a bit shouty around 3500 rpm?
It's fine if I push on gradually but if I'm a bit keen on the throttle it sounds a bit, you know, not sure how to describe it really, a bit blarey like a trumpet being blown too hard.
I quite like a nice rumble from an exhaust and was actually thinking of getting a stainless one fitted but wondered if this was something else making a noise that a seasoned Volvo owner would recognise and immediately tell me it was the flux capacitor on its way out.
Also any suggestions on a good aftermarket exhaust system would be appreciated.
Cheers,
Paul.

[Laird Scooby]

Not sure on the "barking" you describe Paul but give these guys a shout for a stainless system :

http://demandengineering.co.uk/

They know their stuff and i've seen their work which is very good. Not too far from you and plenty of nice "A" roads on the way back to give it the beans.

Something that can make an exhaust bark under load is a hole, especially if the hole is just the right size to be quiet until you hoof it. The quick, easy test is to hold the palm of your hand over the tailpipe with the engine ticking over - you'll hear it if there's a hole and if there isn't, you'll feel it when your hand gets pushed away.

[Han solo]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Not sure on the "barking" you describe Paul but give these guys a shout for a stainless system :

http://demandengineering.co.uk/

They know their stuff and i've seen their work which is very good. Not too far from you and plenty of nice "A" roads on the way back to give it the beans.

Something that can make an exhaust bark under load is a hole, especially if the hole is just the right size to be quiet until you hoof it. The quick, easy test is to hold the palm of your hand over the tailpipe with the engine ticking over - you'll hear it if there's a hole and if there isn't, you'll feel it when your hand gets pushed away.

Cheers, I'll definitely give demand a look.

Had a bit of a look underneath this morning and the exhaust looks scabby in places and I think it's leaking at the front end when I put my hand over the tailpipe, it's a bit hard to tell as the front is in a different postal area🤣
So I think the best bet is to replace it with something a bit more robust and maybe a bit more euphonium than trumpet.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Han solo

Cheers, I'll definitely give demand a look.

Had a bit of a look underneath this morning and the exhaust looks scabby in places and I think it's leaking at the front end when I put my hand over the tailpipe, it's a bit hard to tell as the front is in a different postal area🤣
So I think the best bet is to replace it with something a bit more robust and maybe a bit more euphonium than trumpet.

IF your hand didn't move it's pretty safe to say it's blowing. If it's quite a deep sound, it's at the front, if it's more "fluffy and farty" it's near the back.

A friend of mine had a stainless steel exhaust made for his Rover 820 by Demand, think it was about £400 including the decat pipe. It's a similar length system as the Rover is in fact longer than the 7/9xx cars and being FWD has the exhaust manifold at the front of the engine bay and just for fun has an extra 2' or so just ahead of the fuel tank to go round the tank and exit under the back axle with the tailpipes/backbox poking out the rear bumper.

Gives you a ball-park figure to work on anyway.

Something else to note, with a holed exhaust firstly your fuel economy will be considerably down and secondly, it can cause misfires because of mixture fluctuations.

Good luck getting it sorted, let me know how it goes with Demand as i'm seriously considering a stainless exhaust for my 760 and that will be similar to yours.

[Han solo]

Thanks again Dave,
Had another look when my son came home from work and you can actually hold your hand on indefinitely 🙄
It's like a tea bag, I've slapped a load of gungum on it for now and taken it for a drive, hey presto the noise has gone, it originally sounded like it was coming from the front of the car, certainly didn't sound like the backbox.
I'll post the price they quote to give you an idea.

[Han solo]

Ok, so just got off the phone to demand engineering and they have quoted £475 all in and they will fit it while I wait and tune the exhaust to my musical taste.
Also it's about a one month wait
They are part of a franchise called https://www.longlife.co.uk/
That have branches all over the place

[Han solo]

That price was for a cat back by the way.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Han solo

Ok, so just got off the phone to demand engineering and they have quoted £475 all in and they will fit it while I wait and tune the exhaust to my musical taste.
Also it's about a one month wait
They are part of a franchise called https://www.longlife.co.uk/
That have branches all over the place

That sounds about right as it goes, i know my friends one was 2-3 years ago, metal prices have altered so it's all within the ball-park.

You've probably noticed from my signature i also run a couple of Rover 827s, someone on the Rover forum is trying to get a stainless exhaust in his part of the country (Yorkshire) and his local one is fully booked for about 6 weeks.

He's found another (as you say, they're all Long-Life franchises) in Bradford, a bit further away that doesn't have a waiting list.

As i said to him, it might pay to wait until the nearer one that's fully booked for 6 weeks to give him a quote, it may not be cheaper but it will probably be better - as it's basically the same product it's all down to attention to detail and while it may not seem like it, that can make or break an exhaust.

Some years back when i still could, i built a system for one of mine. It looked good, sounded fairly good but not quite right and it ruined the performance and economy. I had split the system into two just ahead of the back axle so i could fit twin back boxes, one each side with twin tailpipes on each.

That meant the ultimate back pressure was wrong. I got a friend to make me a couple of restrictors to fit in the pipes where they entered the back boxes - problem solved!
Much quieter, deeper, performed much better and the economy was up to 43mpg on a run. General running economy was improved as well by about 10-20% depending where and how the general running was.

In short, i'd wait the month!

[Jimsiss]

I agree, if you know a place is good it's worth the wait. I had a friend who used a different long life dealer than I did (had them bend the pipe for my 1990 polo GT and supply the parts and I welded it myself) his polo's exhaust was awful, had to go back and have bits sorted and it still wasn't great. Unfortunately the one I used was set up by a guy laundering money so that shut down very quickly (the guy doing the work was awesome and knew his stuff but got screwed over by the owner).

I built my own system for my 940 in stainless from the turbo back, it's not easy and took my Dad and me several days to get a 3" system tucked up close to the body yet clear everything else. Cost £300 in parts alone plus a bottle of argon and a few kW of electricity but I got it how I wanted with a sports cat I can replace with a de-cat pipe in a few minutes. A lot of time was spent welding too as I used preformed bends so I ended up with around 30 TiG welds in the whole system, not ideal but works well still.

A custom mandrel bent system will flow well and save on time, definitely worth the money.

A place in Macclesfield that makes custom exhausts for cars and industrial processes quoted me around £550 for a cat back system in stainless, they didn't want to touch the downpipe and didn't supply cats but they will make downpipes and manifolds if you are having a jig made. I'm not knocking them, they are brilliant products but very expensive.

The other thing is you are getting a lifetime warrenty so if anything does go wrong you want a decent engineer to fix it, choose a bad place and it will require more time going back to have it fixed than a place that does it correctly first time.

[Han solo]

More than happy to wait a month for good work so I'm booking mine in tomorrow for last week in June I think she said,
Hmm should I go for sedate gentleman's estate or something a bit more grrr