by Steve Grosekemper on Sun Oct 25, 2009 5:23 pm
I think we all missing the point with this noise issue.
The "club" didn't wake up the morning of the AX in question and decide to enforce the noise restriction to the letter of the law. A car came into tech with open exhaust that was audibly offensive moving through the pits. When questioned there was a comment about other loud cars. (Not a direct quote; just an illustration of the problem)
Once the noise meter was dragged out it was obvious this was not the only car “stretching” the noise limits. So if you want to be angry with someone go complain to the guy/girl driving the noisiest car you hear.
The attitude of this offending driver is just human nature. “Hey, officer why did you pull over my Viper Green 997 GT3RS for speeding when that Toyota Prius was going the same speed as I was?”
When you come to an event and hear cars of an elevated sound level you assume; and rightly so, that it is an acceptable sound level as they are continuing to run at this level.
Because of this it is our duty as a club to make sure we say within the acceptable limits we set for ourselves decades ago. If you let the 93 Db guy slide why not let the 94 Db guy slide? OK, 94 isn’t that bad; but 95 now that’s way too loud… unless it is a zone event and the guy drove all the way from Arizona and is in the hunt for year end points…One over is still over and the car should be told to get out of line and fix it. If it is 5 over or some other limit we choose you just go home. There should be no refunds if you came to an event unprepared to meet the requirements of the event. Virtually any car can be made to be quieter fairly easily.
You see that that Mr. Smith has the car that is identical to yours except with a “brand X” exhaust and he has never even been asked about noise levels for over a year. Because of that you buy the same system and install it on your car. On the first AX you run with the new system you get popped for sound because some other guy brought out a really loud car and the sound was subsequently checked on all cars.
Who is to blame for this? Mr. Smith because he said he never had a problem? The guy who brought out the 99 dB car and prompted the blanket sound check or the event chairs for letting the problem escalate to a point where 30% of the cars are over the limit. Probably all of them to one point or another. The guy with the “Brand X” exhaust didn’t ask to have his car checked because he would rather get away with being a bit noisy than having to change his new exhaust. The chairs are really busy and the only guys less popular than the corner working chairs is the sound guy… Not an easy volunteer position to fill.
We do need to find and stick to a uniform method of checking sound. This will probably take a few events to iron out. The procedure needs to be documented and kept with the meter so any lay person can set up and check sound levels.
Now to answer a few questions about newer cars and noise: Newer cars with cold air intakes make a lot of noise… especially Boxters when checked from the drivers/air intake side. 964/993 cars with cone air filters are really loud when the resonance flap opens up above 5000 RPM. Many late cars have factory sport exhaust systems that by-pass 80% of the muffler at high RPM under full throttle. Any car run over 6000 RPM is going to be exponentially louder as RPM increases.
My old 914-6 would be 92 Db at 6500 and 98 at 7500 RPM. As for any Porsche model with “GT” in the name… Porsche makes these fastest of the fast cars so they just pass DOT standards at full power. When they are cruising down the freeway they are very quiet.
In the meantime if 80% of the cars are 89-91 Db and your car is 100Db it probably isn’t a meter issue. It’s a car issue that you were more than likely aware of. Instead of arguing about it walk the pits and see if someone has something to help you quiet down. There are three Porsche independent shops within 30-minute round trips of the stadium that have nearly every possible variation of 911 exhaust sitting on a shelf or stuffed in a back corner. They also have representatives at most driving events that are more than willing to assist with this sort of issue.
This will all get sorted out in the next few events so we all can enjoy events at the “Q” without interruption or hassle from “The Man”.
