Single-cylinder thumper sound

One cylinder, four strokes, so one power stroke every two revolutions. Firings per revolution is 0.5, and between each bang there is a long gap where nothing is driving the crank at all. That gap is what a thumper is.

Ten seconds from a standing start. The launch, the gearbox working up through the ratios, then the overrun as the throttle closes. Driven by the same gearbox model the simulator runs, so the shift points are the ones you would hear in the car.

Unevenness is set to 55, the highest value anywhere in this library. On a multi-cylinder engine that parameter models firing irregularity between cylinders. With one cylinder there is nothing to be irregular against, so what it produces here is the enormous cycle-to-cycle variation of an engine with no overlapping power strokes to smooth it out. Jitter at 20 adds to that.

Pipe length runs to 175, longer than any road car here and second only to the steam locomotive. A single with a big pipe rings between bangs, and that ringing is most of the character.

Bass sits at 112 with the sub at 65, giving each bang real weight. Brightness at 95 keeps some crack on top so it does not turn into a thud.

It redlines at 5,500 across five very short ratios, the shortest set on the site, topping out at 18 km/h per 1000 rpm. At 90 km/h it is already at 5,000 rpm and close to done. That gearing is correct for the machine and makes it a poor choice for a motorway, which is worth knowing before you pick it for one.

It is also the clearest demonstration on the site of what the gearbox model is doing. With bangs this far apart you can hear each individual ratio change land, which is impossible to pick out on an engine firing six times a revolution.

Specification

Every figure above is read from the preset the app actually runs, not retyped.

Drive it

Open the simulator with this engine selected, allow location, and press ignition. See how it works for what happens between GPS and sound.

Related

• Steam locomotive sound
• Muscle V8 engine sound
• Diesel engine sound

Every other engine

• RECORDED CARS
  • BAC Mono
  • Ferrari 458
  • BMW M1 Procar
• SUPERCARS
  • Muscle V8
  • Modern V8
  • V10
  • V12
  • Anti-lag rally car
  • Air-cooled flat-six
• NORMAL CARS
  • Three-cylinder
  • Four-cylinder
  • Turbo hot hatch
  • Inline-six
  • Diesel
  • Flat-four boxer
• FUN SOUNDS
  • Steam locomotive
  • Radial prop plane
  • Jet turbine
  • Alien craft

All twenty on one page, with redline and gear count for each.