Exhaust Sound Showdown: R35 GT-R vs DC2, GR86, Prelude and M3
Turn your headphones up. This is the home page for my exhaust sound showdown: five very different builds, from a twin-turbo V6 to a high-revving VTEC four and a screaming BMW V8, recorded back to back so you can compare them properly. Part I is the controlled test. Part II takes the same five cars onto the street and highway.
The lineup and exhaust setups
Tap a car to see its page in the garage.
Car | Engine | Intake / exhaust setup |
|---|---|---|
3.8L twin-turbo V6 (VR38DETT) | Stock exhaust | |
1.8L NA B18C | Mugen intake & manifold, Spoon B-pipe & N1 exhaust, Spoon ECU | |
2.4L boxer-4 (FA24) | Blitz carbon air intake, HKS Legamax Premium axle-back | |
2.2L NA H22A | AEM cold air intake, high-flow cat, Invidia Q300 cat-back | |
4.0L NA V8 (S65) | Stock exhaust |
Part I: fly-bys, launches and a dB-tested rev sweep
Each car went through the same three tests, filmed in 4K:
Highway fly-bys
Hard standing-start launches
A decibel-tested RPM sweep from idle all the way to 6,000 RPM
The measured sound levels for all five cars are in the summary table at the end of the video. Jump straight to the dB summary at 13:08.
Part II: on-ramp pulls and in-cabin sound
Same five builds, now on the street. Each car does an industrial-area cruise, a full-throttle highway on-ramp pull and a highway cruise, recorded with both an exterior exhaust mic and an in-cabin mic so you hear both sides of every pull.
Then there's the Blind Sound Test: can you tell which car is which by sound alone? Start the blind test at 7:41 and post your guesses before the answers at 8:33.
How it was recorded
Recorder: Zoom F3 (32-bit float)
Exterior exhaust mic: Shure SM57
In-cabin mic: Rode M1
Final thoughts
Turbo V6, VTEC, boxer and V8 all sound completely different once you hear them back to back, and the in-cabin recordings tell a different story from the outside ones. Which one takes the crown for you, and did you get the blind test right? Let me know in the comments!
Watch next: Exhaust Sound Showdown Part II on YouTube
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