Some cars, especially luxury cars where quiet operation is a key feature, have another component in the exhaust that looks like a muffler, but is called a resonator. This device works just like the resonator chamber in the muffler -- the dimensions are calculated so that the waves reflected by the resonator help cancel out certain frequencies of sound in the exhaust.
There are other features inside this muffler that help it reduce the sound level in different ways. The body of the muffler is constructed in three layers: Two thin layers of metal with a thicker, slightly insulated layer between them. This allows the body of the muffler to absorb some of the pressure pulses. Also, the inlet and outlet pipes going into the main chamber are perforated with holes. This allows thousands of tiny pressure pulses to bounce around in the main chamber, canceling each other out to some extent in addition to being absorbed by the muffler's housing.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong. It seems that I've read that a resonator is
a muffler but because of it's positioning downstream of a muffler, it's
termed a resonator. Can someone elaborate on the distinction?
Eric
'63 Crown Four-Door
'63 Belvedere Four-Door sedan
'72 Newport Custom sedan
> The parts book calls both of them "mufflers", and
> they look like mufflers
> to me. I looked under my '66 Coupe barn find, and
> there's a pair of
> mufflers under there. In addition, the line drawing
> in the FSM clearly
> shows mufflers. I think what the factory was trying
> to tell us is when the
> exhaust is done correctly you don't need resonators.
----------------- http://www.imperialclub.com -----------------
This message was sent to you by the Imperial Mailing List. Please
reply to mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and your response will be
shared with everyone. Private messages (and attachments) for the
Administrators should be sent to webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To UN-SUBSCRIBE, go to http://imperialclub.com/unsubscribe.htm