Hi everybody out there,
Can someone please tell me what is the pourpose, technical or of any other nature, of the SOUND GENERATOR on the R56-S. This is the very first time after spending about 35 years tinkering with cars that I see that a manufacturer adds a factory (OEM) part to actually GENERATE SOUND, obviously not counting the music system. But seriously, throw some light on this for me I need your help.
mini07
PD. Can I get rid of this part without affecting the car ?? I really don't like the noise it generates.

 

Its purpose is just as its name implies, to introduce the intake "growl" into the cabin adding to the sporty nature of the Cooper S.

BMW first introduced this intake sound generator on the Z4 3.0.

I don't see why you couldn't remove it as long as you fit an appropriate plug to seal the intake duct.

Cheers

 

Probably a bad idea to get rid of it. Your MINI wont do much without the engine.

This is just speculation, but could this be what generates the alert sounds and/or the voices? I suspect getting rid of it would cause all sorts of alerts from the OBC.

 

So actually it makes the grouling sound blowing air through it or sucking air ?? I supposed that being this on the intake manifold, and being this a turbo car, it was by blowing air. Throw more light, please.
mini07

 

No air actually moves through the Motor Sound System.

"The Motor Sound System is a membrane system for modulating and transmitting the intake system pressure pulses to the passenger compartment."

When the intake valves close they create a pressure pulse that goes back through the intake. This is what creates the "growling" noise from the intake and what the Motor Sound System aims to channel into the passenger compartment for that sporty sound.

On a related note, if the MSS on the Cooper S is similar to the Z4 version there are foam insert(s) in the MSS sound channel. By removing the foam insert in the sound channel the intake noise is significantly increased in the cabin, if thats the sort of thing you like.

Cheers

 

Good info, Sindarin. Thanks!

Here's a link to a thread in a bimmer forum that gives a little background (at the end of the first post): http://www.zpost.com/forums/showpost...00&postcount=1

gl

 

Thank you very much for all that valuable technical information. Wow, a famous performance/sport car manufacturer depending on a "make a sound" gadget to make their sports cars sound like sport cars. This is deceiving, it's a shame. It's like when I was 8 or 10 years old and installed with clothes pins air balloons or playing cards near the wheel spikes of my bicycle to make it sound like it had an engine. Pure fantasy.
mini07

 

BMW's are not known for there great sound .They should fire some of there computer tech.'s and hire some people to work on this .

 

Maybe that's what they did and that's how they came up with the sound generator.

 

I can't decide if that's incredibly cool, or incredibly ridiculous. Either way that's a very BMW solution.

 

VW does the same sort of thing with the new GTI. Parts to amplify the noise to the passenger compartment.

We complain about not having enough sound and about how the sound is transfered to our ears. You think automotive engineers ever complain about car buyers?

 

... I actually prefer quieter engines with power, as opposed to wasted energy turned into noise. I wonder if this sort of thing can be disabled without hurting performance?

 

Jaguar has a similar device on their sportier cars. It is a tube that carries intake sounds into the cockpit so that the sucking sound can be heard more clearly. Car makers pay much attention to making their cars "sound right," whatever that may mean. I prefer the idea of making them right and letting that rightness show itself in many ways.

On the plus side, it allows drivers to have the sucking sound often provided by cold air intakes for free, and without lowering the car's performance. And, what I like best, it keeps the noise inside the car so innocent victims do not have to hear the sound.

cheers,

Joe

 

Hmm... still waiting for my Mini, not sure what to make of this. I don't recall the car being excessively loud during test drives. Loud cars make my ears very fatigued after a very long drive. I realized this after we traded my wife's Ford land yacht for a Lexus land yacht. We can now have a normal conversation, speaking at very low levels. Also, music can be played (and fully appreciated) at much lower levels. By the time we reach our destination, we're much more relaxed and fresh than we were before.

Now, I'm buying a Mini as fun daily driver, and won't be taking it for too many drives over an hour or two. Having some good audio feedback from the engine can be a good thing during spirited driving (I'm not one to watch the tach). But I hope they didn't amp the noise too much.

 

i have no problems with the engine sound so far...a lot of people complain about it but not me!

 

Thanks, that's a very interesting thread. After reading the following, this seems like a good thing:

 

How lame...I'd rather pipe this through my HK...

 

I feel that it is a little excessive for MINI to use that. I have no envy for a V8 or V10 or V12 muscle cars and the noise they make. I would rather have the true 1.6L engine sound - not the amplified version.

 

It's amplified? I must have missed that detail. All I'm reading is that some engine sounds are selectively filtered into the cabin.

 

I suppose you could interpret "filtered into the cabin" as amplified. It's louder in the cabin than it would've been w/o the SG.

I think we as consumers kind of asked for this: We kept asking car manufacturers to make our cars quieter, and they did - to the point where all extraneous noises, "good" and "bad" were being eliminated. It seems that wind and road noise have been deemed "bad", while certain engine noises have been deemed "good", particularly in performance-oriented cars. I think BMW and other manufacturers are giving us what *most* (but not all) of us want.

I wonder if they thought about adding a sound hose to the wheel wells to "filter" the squealing of the tires on the pavement into the cabin?

gl

 

The silly thing is talked about over at MINI2, http://www.mini2.com/forum/2nd-gen-e...-how-daft.html look for Roland from www.gttuning.com, he's made a neat adaptor for a boost take-off too, handy for those that might want to fit a gauge.

......many have removed it and placed a a blanking bung safely.

I'm sure a tuning company in the US has made something to replace it too - sorry, I can't find it.

 

Thanks for that. This quote from roland2003 makes me think a little over-engineering has occurred:

 

Non-sense and pure fantasy, we are getting to the proper words.

 

I agree with greylight. Car interiors now days are so quiet that with some music and the windows up you can't even hear an ambulance until it's right on you. So to be able to hear a little engine music lets pipe it into the car...sounds good to me. It's not cheating the sound or trying to make your car that much more muscular, but just letting you hear what your working with!! And for us that is something MINI!!

 

They will do it, if they think it will help sell cars. As for the sound generator, it does have a "real" purpose. It helps to sell cars. There's a pattern here.

For most people, the sound of a car's engine will appeal to them or not, and it is one factor in choosing their purchase. And even on NAM, the majority won't care how the sound was achieved; the engine is largely a black box to them. One must be careful at professing to be a purist about such things. The MINI (as with most cars) has a long list of "fake" features artificially added for marketing appeal. Just one example, consider the exhaust pop of the 05/06 MCS. It is no more "natural" than the sound generator.