If you’re someone who enjoys a loud car, you’re likely always searching for ways to amplify its sound. There could be various reasons for this, such as seeking excitement, garnering attention, or even enhancing performance.
In this article, I’ll share several effective methods to increase your car’s volume without breaking the bank. They include:
- Installing a performance muffler
- Upgrading your car engine
- Making your exhaust pipes larger
- Adding a resonator exhaust tip
- Creating holes in your exhaust
- Performing a muffler deflate
- Using turbochargers
These are just some of the ways car enthusiasts use, but I’ll also discuss several other affordable strategies to make your car louder in this article. Before we explore them, it will be helpful to understand exactly how car sounds are generated. Let’s jump right in.
How Does Your Car Make Sounds?
Your car creates sounds when air is mixed with fuel to create a combustion that escapes through the combustion chamber.
A combustion is a blast that makes good sound waves. The sound waves then travel through the car exhaust system, pass through the muffler and resonator, and then leave.
The sounds that travel through the exhaust system are quiet, thanks to the muffler and resonator. The muffler reduces the vibrations in the exhaust, whereas the resonator helps enhance the car performance by working with the catalytic converter in the exhaust.
If your muffler goes bad or has a hole in it, it will cause leakage in the pre-muffled exhaust that creates louder sounds from the exhaust system.
While loud car noises are often referred to as automotive issues, that’s not always the case because many car enthusiasts make their cars sound loud on purpose — for the fun of it.
Most people will want quiet vehicles, which is why cars are designed to be quiet. If you want your car loud, you’ll need to add modifications to the components that are silencing your car.
The elements preventing your car from making louder sounds are the muffler, resonator, and exhaust pipe. Most modifications for making your car louder will cost you money, but they don’t have to be expensive — some are even free!
7 Effective Methods to Make Your Car Louder
There are a couple of ways to help you increase your car sound, even make it sound more profound. While you can have someone to do it for you at the workshop, it is more affordable to do it yourself. Besides, it will be more fun to learn how to make the changes that meet your criteria.
1. Install a Performance Muffler
As discussed earlier, mufflers are used to reduce the vibrations in the exhaust; they muffle the noise coming from and to your exhaust. Without the mufflers, your car engine will be too loud. You can get:
A performance muffler specifically designed to make your car louder while also controlling the volume of the sound coming out of the exhaust. They can cost nearly $100 each. Unlike the regular muffler that dampens the noise your car makes, a performance muffler tweaks the sound waves that your car exhaust produces to make it sound more aggressive.
Now, how does the performance muffler do that?
If you compare the inside of the regular muffler to that of a performance muffler, you will notice that the performance muffler has fewer metal plates and chambers. A standard muffler has many metal plates and chambers so that the sound waves that travel through them can meet and cancel each other out. In contrast, since a performance muffler has fewer metal plates and chambers, less sound gets canceled.
You can try the Flowmaster Super 40 Muffler from Amazon.com. This performance muffler will make your car louder, not too loud to get you a fine, but loud enough to get heads turning. The Flowmaster Super 40 muffler is a must-try, especially if you’re looking for a muffler with deep, rich sounds.
2. Upgrade Your Car Engine
Another way to make your car louder — although it can be pretty expensive — is to get a bigger engine. The simple main reason why your vehicle is currently not making the loud sound you want is that the engine is too small. To get louder sounds, you need a bigger engine with more power.
A bigger engine will have enough power to produce the big sound you’re looking for in your car. Before you upgrade your engine, you want to make sure that your car’s components can house the engine. A new engine for a 4-cylinder can easily cost about $4,000, and the more complex the engine, or the more luxurious the car, the more expensive the engine will be.
Alternatively, you can get a good-condition second-hand car engine instead of a new one. A second-hand car engine can cost you as little as a couple of hundred dollars. Of course, the price of the car engine will be based on the vehicle’s age, mileage, etc., and don’t forget the labor cost for installing the car engine if you’re going to hire someone to do it for you.
3. Increase Your Exhaust Pipes Size
If you don’t want to upgrade your car engine due to the cost, why not increase the size of your exhaust pipes?
I mentioned that the regular muffler in your car cancels the noise that passes through the exhaust. With the standard muffler equipped, your exhaust can only shoot out small sounds.
However, if your car has a bigger exhaust pipe, it can create louder noises, even if your car has a regular muffler. While this is one way to increase your car sound, it’s not the best trick as it increases your car sound volume by only a little.
Also, bear in mind that although bigger pipes are used for better horsepower, it doesn’t mean they are guaranteed to give better car performance.
4. Add a Resonator Exhaust Tip
Another way you can make your car louder is by adding a resonator exhaust tip to your current exhaust. Adding a resonator exhaust tip is an excellent method for making your car louder if you are on a low budget. The tip reverses the muffler effects to help your car exhaust pipe create an aggressive volume output.
5. Create Holes in Your Exhaust
If you don’t mind some drilling, why not make holes in your exhaust?
This idea might sound weird, but it does work if you’re trying to get your car to create more prominent sounds. By drilling holes in your exhaust, you’re allowing sound waves to escape before your muffler gets to cancel them.
Drilling your exhaust is not costly; you’ll only spend about $10. But making those holes can be a risky business as you can risk screwing up your exhaust, so you must be careful.
Sure, this method is cheap, but it won’t significantly make your car louder as your regular muffler can still cancel most of the sound waves — the resonator exhaust tip is ideal, although slightly more expensive.
If you choose to drill your exhaust, you want to drill the holes in the exhaust pipe before the muffler. You don’t want to make holes before the catalytic converter either because this can cause poisonous gases to leak into the air. Also, you must not make the holes before the O2 sensor, as this can screw up your sensor and cause your car to waste fuel.
To make these holes use a 3/8 drill bit and drill between 3 and 6 holes around your exhaust pipe, just before the muffler.
6. Perform a Muffler Delete
A muffler delete is getting rid of the muffler from your exhaust system. That means you won’t have to worry about your muffler canceling the sound waves that travel through your exhaust. Muffler delete is an excellent method because it’s affordable (about $30 or less), and it works.
Here’s how you do a muffler delete:
- Separate the muffler from your exhaust by cutting it off.
- Weld a pipe to your exhaust pipe.
The reason for welding a pipe to your exhaust pipe is to replace the muffler you’ve removed from your exhaust system. Your car will sound much louder and more aggressive with this method. If you’re going with this method, make sure you still have your resonator because some US states require that all cars have at least one sound suppressing equipment.
Or, you can try disconnecting the drum from the pipe coming from the engine. That’s all. You can watch the video below to see how effective this method is:
7. Use Turbochargers
While turbocharges are not for everyone, you can give them a try to make your car louder. The turbocharger will significantly make your car louder. Plus, you will get enhanced car performance in your vehicle.
The drawbacks of turbochargers, though, are:
- Compatibility. Turbocharges are not compatible with all car models, so you want to go for this method only if they’re compatible with your car. You can check if there are specific turbochargers for your car.
- High cost. Turbocharges are not fuel-friendly and will eat up your fuel fast. Some people don’t mind, though, so this could be an option for you if performance and loud noise are what matters most.
Final Thoughts
There are several ways to make your car louder. You can install a Performance muffler, upgrade your car engine, increase your exhaust pipes size, add a resonator exhaust tip, or create holes in your exhaust. You can also try disconnecting the drum from the pipe coming from the engine or using turbocharges.