During the 2nd Annual Northern California Lexus Club meet, we held the first ever exhaust competition. The idea behind the contest was to give owners with modified exhaust systems an opportunity to show off their exhaust sound and have a friendly competition.

There are two (2) categories, 6 cylinder and 8 cylinder. Contestants from each category will have 10 seconds to rev their motors in front of the crowd in any manner they wish that would be impressive. Spectators would vote on their favorite set up according to their personal preference.

Each car listed the type of Intake and Exhaust system being used, as well as any special mods that were done, such as cross pipes, no CATs or resonators. The intakes, surprisingly made a difference in the sound of a couple of systems that used the same exhaust set up.

The crowd really enjoyed the competition as there is seldom an opportunity for people to hear so many types of exhausts in the same place at the same time. I know of several people who were able to decide on the exhaust system for their car based on this friendly competition.

In the end, did we have a hands down winner? You be the judge. The votes were split over several cars and the margin of the winners was maybe 6 to 8 votes over the next car, with around 50-60 people voting.

Several factors weigh into the winning combination.

1. People have personal their preferences.
2. The popular vote heavily favored the loudest , nastiest sounding system, but in the 6 cyl class, the loudest car got second place.
3. Style is another consideration, as some people really wowed the crowd with the way they revved their motors.

In the end, it was interesting to note that the winners in both classes were the last competitors to line up.

We have the 6 cylinder class available for download on the newly created NorCal Website: www.LexusGoneWild.com . Please note that the file is big, so we decided to lower the resolution in order for 56K users to be able to watch it. I have viewed the competition in High Res on DVD and the full screen video and audio are much better. It is a lot easier to hear the differences between the systems when played on DVD through a good audio system, using a sub. For those interested, a DVD will be available in a few weeks. It will include both competitions, the meet video, plus a bunch of bonus material. I will post again when the DVD will be released.

So here is the link to the 6 cyl. competition. The 8 cyl competition will be posted in the GS forums in about a week. http://www.lexusgonewild.com/norCal_...xhaustComp.htm

Congrats go out to Solo who won and picked out his prize to be a JL Audio subwoofer.

Thanks to Rominl for setting up the competition rules & guidelines, R.Maestas for filming the competition and Big Props go out to Jawnthen who did a great job editing the video and adding special effects.

I have seen previews of the meet DVD and all I can tell you is it's HOT !

 

Awesome job guys.

 

Sweet..... That video by far gives out a lot of info that members can use. Great work guys!

 

Wow. I want my copy of that on DVD NTSC format please.

 

Great video!

Thanks!

 

hahahahah

I want to see the video

 

just my opinion i thought the winner was the worst. i liked the apexi and the greddy

 

Now that is awesome teamwork and commitment to help fellow Lexus enthusiests!

 

can't wait for the v8 version! hurry!

 

I'd have to agree with 3dog....

Both cars that had the Xerd (??) race pipe had exhaust that didn't sound good to my ears....

Could have been the video though.....

 

The Xerd pipe does away with the catalytic converter and it's design is supposed to provide better flow.

So on the IS race car, the focus was obviously on performance.

Style is the other difference you hear, the last car was bumping off the rev limiter (also had Xerd pipe), which presents a completely different exhaust note. Maybe that impressed people? In the V8 competition, my impression is that style scored the winner well. I know of atleast one car that I thought was better, but was not presented well.

The other thing that doesn't show on the video is how much louder the last two cars were. As in car audio, to a lot of people, louder is better.

If we do this next year, we will try to get a professional microphone and recording equipment. On a standard camcorder mic, the frequency response sucks, so it can only get you so far with recording the actual tone. I will also bring out my SPL meter to measure volume.

 

Listening to it on an mpeg video clip and listening to it in person are DEFINITELY two different things. You have to hear and see it in person to appreciate the results more.

 

I like the HKS Dragger II the best.. the pitch on the N1 was kind of high. Evo was not bad, I will have to flip a coin on this one.