68' Charger 'Bullitt' mufflers:

[Captain D]

Hello all,

Just curious to find out what mufflers were used on the 1968 Dodge Charger from the film, Bullitt? Were they glasspacks? Any suggestions on part numbers, etc.?

Are these what I'm looking for:
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-630852

And, for those who do have them, how loud is the drone (if any) inside the cab, just out of curiosity? I'm hoping that they're not too loud, especially inside the cab. On my ride, I have a 69' Charger / 383 BB


Thank you for any info...

[Kern Dog]

The sounds of the cars were dubbed in during post production work at the movie studio.
They could have used ANY car to source those sounds. The Dukes of Hazzard had episodes where they dubbed in the 4 speed Mustang sounds even though the General Lee had an automatic transmission.
Looking for that sound will be an impossible task to replicate. You'd be better off just finding a car that you know of with a sound that you like and go about parts selection from there. A LOT depends on camshaft, compression and manifolds versus headers.

[Mike DC]

Agreed.  Don't trust the onscreen sound effects.

The old 35mm cameras (pre-digital) were noisy machines.  They had to be encased in big heavy housings to muffle the sound of the film mechanicals.  And the audio process required good microphones & stuff too.  When they were doing action & chase footage they would typically ditch all that stuff and just commit to fabricating a whole soundtrack in the studio later.  It made the cameras smaller & lighter & simpler.  Very important when the cameras had to be waved around quickly, strapped onto crane arms, moving cars, etc.   

Even today the stunt crews usually don't mess with audio.  They might have a guy with a boom mic there to grab sounds as best he can, but it's more of a raw material thing for the studio editors.   


Today there are TONS of short videos of guys showing off their car's new exhaust on Youtube.  You can find examples of almost anything. 

Just make sure you are listening to the clips with decent speakers on your computer.  The built-in speakers on a laptop are so small that it can affect the sound.   

[Captain D]

Agreed on everything stated above (I recall that the Dukes' 'borrowed'/ dubbed the Bullitt chase scene sounds). I was just curious if anyone has installed the glasspacks via the link from Summit. If so, if they had a loud drone inside the cab, etc. Although I realize that there are other factors involved, was just curious if they gave that 'factory' muffler sound in general... it's all good...

[Mike DC]

The vast majority of mufflers fall into about 3 families of sound.

turbos (OEM factory)
straight-thrus (glasspacks/etc)
chambered (flowmasters)

Getting a cool muscle-car sound without having an annoying interior drone on the highway . . . those are basically opposing demands.  You're stuck finding a compromise you can live with.     

Literal "glasspacks" are not stable over time.  The fiberglass packing material inside degrades from the exhaust fumes and they get louder as the mileage goes up.  There are a few more stable variations of glasspacks on the market where they use steel wool or rock wool inside.  Those last longer. 

Bottom line:  Plan on periodically replacing any glasspack-type muffler.  Mate it up to the exhaust pipes using bolt-on pipe clamps rather than welding the whole mess together so it's easier to remove the muffler later.   

Another glasspack alternative is 'powerstick' aerochamber mufflers.  It's built sorta like a glasspack but it has a series of pinches along the outer casing instead of having packing material inside.  It still sounds similar to a straight-thru packed design.     
 
 
General rules about exhaust noise: 

Bigger or longer muffler = quieter.

Bigger diameter exhaust/muffler system = louder.

Mufflers located farther away from the engine = smoother/quieter.

Headers = sounds more hi-po & louder.

Camshaft with long duration/overlap = sounds more lopey & hi-po.