I started planning a trip to California back in November. This trip will be centered around a track day with Golden Gate Lotus Club at Laguna Seca, one of the nation’s premier race tracks. I’ve made a number of reservations, and have already paid for track days at Thunderhill and Sonoma. One of the first interesting tidbits I learned when I started this plan is that both Laguna Seca and Sonoma have noise restrictions.
Laguna Seca Raceway was built back in 1957. In recent years, however, people have been building homes around the track. And, of course, nobody wants noisy race cars in the neighborhood, even if the noisy race cars were there first. We see this sort of thing all the time, usually with airports. “I built this house knowing an airport is right next door, but it’s too noisy. Can’t we do something about those noisy airplanes?”
Ugly exhaust
Laguna Seca has a number of days where they’re allowed to run without noise restrictions, but most days are limited to 90 dB. I asked the folks at GGLC if my after market exhaust would be okay. The consensus was that an Elise running with the stock exhaust would pass, but most after market exhausts would not. At least, not without some modifications. Many people resort to welding odd attachments onto their cars to direct the noise away from the detection station. Google “Laguna Seca exhaust” images and you’ll get a bunch of things like the picture at right.
I really want to run at Laguna Seca, and it wouldn’t be any fun to do a two-week trip around this event and end up not being able to participate because I’m too loud. And I’m certainly not going to weld some ugly-ass pipes to the back of my car. Luckily, I happen to have the stock exhaust in the attic. When I bought the car, the previous owner included it and I had to have it shipped home. It’s been in the attic ever since, and I never had any intention of using it.
So yesterday Michael and I went about swapping the exhaust. I’d been told by the GGLC guys that it would be possible to rent an exhaust for the day. How hard can it be to swap, then, if somebody is willing to do it twice in one day, to make it stock in the morning then put it back in the afternoon? Of course, those guys probably have done this operation a number of times and have it down to a science. Michael and I, on the other hand…
It took us nearly four hours.
When I had it shipped all those years ago, it was packed up in a box full of packing popcorn. Those things got everywhere. Before we went to put it on we shook it pretty good and managed to get about three dozen of the things to fall out. We thought we got them all. When we finally had everything put back together and I started it up, a few more popped out.
It had just started raining when we finished so I didn’t get a test drive in until this afternoon. The car is much quieter. The burbles and pops I like so much are gone. And I think the radio is usable now. With the 2bular exhaust the car is just too loud to listen to the radio unless you’re stopped at a stoplight.
I probably should have snapped some pictures of the process, but that wasn’t real high on my priorities. I did manage to remember to weigh both pieces. The stock exhaust weighs 26 lbs and the 2bular is a feather light 10.5 lbs.