How Corsa Makes Your Chevrolet Sound Better
Whether you have a Corvette or a Silverado, you probably wish you ride sounded a bit better. For many, they turn to the aftermarket for all sorts of technologies, including intakes and exhausts. Corsa, one of the world-wide leaders in exhaust manufacturing, has developed a “No Drone” exhaust system. We visited their facility to see how they do it.
The people at Corsa have two full-time audio engineers on staff to assist with making their exhausts sound just right. Getting the best sound is key with them. They spend the most time working on tuning the sound than they do tuning for performance.
Why?
Because all of their exhausts are already as free-flowing as possible. The design of the vehicle dictates which way the exhaust piping must go, so there’s only so much the exhaust company can do in that department. Corsa exhausts start from what is fundamentally a straight pipe.
Since all exhausts should pretty much net a similar increase in performance because of airflow, the secret to Corsa’s units are the sound. They spend countless hours tuning each exhaust. In the case of the 7th generation Corvette, they have over 1,000 hours into the design and engineering of that system.
Instead of using packing inside the muffler, Corsa uses their own specially designed core that’s designed to reflect sound. If you’ve ever been in a concert hall at a University, you’ll notice that the walls have odd geometric shapes attached to them. Sound bounces off surfaces like that.
In the case of the concert hall, engineers design the shapes to produce exactly the effect they’re looking for. The same thing happens inside the muffler.
This cutaway of a muffler shows exactly what is going on inside the system. The air flows freely through the muffler, but the sound will bounce off and vibrate the different plates of metal inside the exhaust.
The goal is to have an exhaust with a full range of sounds. Instead of trying to block unpleasant sounds from the exhaust, like other manufacturers do, Corsa tries to tune them out. When completed, the exhaust still has a full-range of sounds, just like an opera singer has a full range of vocals.
By avoiding the muting and dampening of sounds, the exhaust doesn’t have the opportunity to sit and drone at certain engine speeds.
Corsa exhausts are pretty popular with the Corvette community. You’ll often see them at shows installing exhausts on ‘Vettes, but they create exhausts for plenty of different performance cars.
If you’re looking for a well-made, made-in-America product that strives to make your Chevrolet sound the absolute best it can, you should check Corsa out. The amount of time and engineering they put into each product they sell definitely differentiates themselves from the competition.
After spending the day at their production facility in Cleveland, I earned a new respect for the engineering involved in expelling exhaust gasses from your car.
What do you think? Have you used Corsa in the past? Let us know your thoughts over in the forums!
