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[russotto]

Originally posted by tw

If you hear the engine, then it is a design problem. Higher perforance engines are obvious - they make less noise. That's why they have higher performance.

Those who known nothing about cars like to advertise the fact. They are most notorious in 5.0 liter Mustangs - one of the world's lowest performance cars - made obvious by the noise of the engine.

Engines make noise largely because they have explosions occurring inside them. Lots of other reasons too, but that's the big one. Cars where you hear the engine less are generally that way because the engine has been tuned to reduce noise at the expense of performance, or because there's more sound insulation, or both. And of course it's hard to separate engine noise from exhaust noise, so the exhaust system comes into it too.

As for the venerable 302, it's hardly low-performance. Low tech, yes, but not low performance.