[OT] Nevermind the car doesn't work... it's still louder than yours!

[Krug]

Bizarre.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/07/02/popsci.stereo.kill/index.html

dB (as in decibel) drag racing is an obscure but growing international "sport" in which competitors go head-to-head for two or three seconds at a time -- hence the name drag racing -- to establish whose sound system is loudest. The 2002 record, set by a German team of secretive audio engineers, was 177.6 dB.

The roar of a 747 on takeoff is usually quantified at about 140 decibels, although there's really no way to correlate the wide-spectrum noise of jet engines in open air with a low-frequency pure tone inside a highly reflective enclosure. Because the decibel scale is logarithmic, with every 10 dB increase equivalent to a doubling of perceived sound (otherwise known as noise), dB drag racing enthusiasts create some seriously loud tones. (Another rule of thumb: All else being equal, every three dB of increased sound from a typical dB drag racing system requires a doubling of amplifier power.)

 

[Thresher]

I dont feel so bad about Civics and Hyundi's driving past my place at 4am with 'doof doof doof' over riding the sound of a 2stroke weed wacker at redline.
Its still not legal to shoot them though for some reason but at least they'll die of industrial deafness after hopefully not hearing the sound of an 18wheeler grinding the honda and korean rubbish into confetti.

Reminds me of an old story...
*insert swirly remaniscance*

My dad's been a mechanic for over 35 years now, there was a time a young fella sporting a mullet and black Metallica Tshirt rolled up in an less than sporting 1978 'baby s**t brown' Toyota Corolla to our garage.
"Battery keeps going flat mista"
Says Mulletboy.
"hmm alright"
Says Dad and wheels the poor old thing into the shed.
Anyway, we're thinking its probably the alternator as most Toyota electrics are pretty solid but in a car this old they tend to crap out around 300-400,000k's and this ones seen a few more than that. Up on the hoist he yanks the critter out and has a good look at it, the beast is slight worn but its been replaced some time in its past by a more caring owner like his mum or something.
Throw it back in and pop the hood.
It has a battery, this is a good thing usually and run a test across it and check the draw while the cars running, nothing wrong there.

Sit back and have a cig or two and a think.
Might be a dead wire thats hanging off somewhere, usually somewhere horrible like under the dash or down behind the headlights or in the boot for the rear lights... or any number of damn near inaccessable and knuckle scraping holes.

"Extra wire off the battery"
Not just any old wire but a huge chunk of black insulated copper thats about as think as your thumb and snaking off behind the firewall up near the master brake cylinder.
Its definatly NOT standard, unless Toyota designed their electrics to run a small suburb. Which, even though theyre over-engineered little tanks is highly unlikly.
Follow Mr Black Cable back behind the firewall and off he goes under the floormats and into the back seats and eventually into the boot.
So, we open up the boot.
Well, whats left of boot.
Because its full of Bass bins and racks of power amps all ingeniously hooked up to each other and other tricky things like making tubes up through the rear parcel shelf. Theres probably 12-15 times the value of the vehicle in the power amps alone and not counting what the speakers are probably worth.

Start the car up, turn on Mulletboys crap music and crank it up, take a measurement across the battery.
The alternator, is somehow making about 110amps and the battery has about 20-30 it can happily put out and Mulletboys stereo is drawing about around 480amps.
Needless to say, thats why Mulletboy's battery was going flat, even while he drove it!

But it was very loud... enough to pop the boot on its own and cause a nosebleed in sensitive children at up to 10metres away at around the '8' on the dial.

Ive probably seen sillyier things in cars, the concrete bags in the boot story will probably have to wait another day though