OPINION: Pop and bang maps can get in the sea

I’ve harboured a burning personal hatred for them – be they OEM or a modification – for more than a decade. Why? The short of it is that it’s all two-dimensional see-through effluent fakery and nonsense designed to appeal to people that talk loudly but don’t actually say very much. But let me explain fully and say how I really feel.

First, let’s understand the history of exhaust pops and bangs, which of course goes back throughout the life of the combustion engine, be that from old carbureted cars or newer modified cars that have had their catalytic converters removed in the name of performance. 

Yes, once upon a time the streets of the world echoed to the sound of backfires coming from normal cars, because they simply didn’t have the computers that now micromanage the mixture of air and fuel in modern engines. Rather, they had carburettors, which occasionally – thanks to fluctuating air temperatures (and densities) or myriad other factors – would dump more fuel into the engine than it strictly needed to produce its power.

There’s not a combustion-powered racing car out there worth its salt that doesn’t belch a flutter of flame out of its exhaust on the way into a braking zone. From the century-old Fiat S76 ‘Beast of Turin’ to the very latest F1 cars and everything in-between. In racing cars, the engines are totally unrestricted emissions-wise and are being fed as much fuel as possible to keep them producing maximum power for as long as possible, which leads to inevitable wastage in part- or off-throttle periods.

In short, wasted fuel in a hot exhaust barreling towards an open oxygen-rich atmosphere – be that in your Nan’s old carbed Rover SD1, a de-catted Nissan Skyline GT-R or the latest Le Mans-winning Ferrari 499P – turns to flame and noise.

But fundamentally, it is wastage and inefficiency manifested in light and sound; a by-product of primitive crude engineering in older cars and the pursuit of performance in racing cars and tuned newer cars. And those are the very important keywords: inefficiency and by-product.

New road cars, even performance cars, don’t need to make these noises. They produce their power with relative efficiency and cleanliness, per the decree of legislation. They have trick injection systems, computer-controlled air/fuel ratios and enormous catalytic converters, particulate filters and clever software that stops too much more fuel than is strictly necessary and too many nasty emissions alike, from going in the engine or out the exhaust.

But like sticking the internals of the latest iPhone in a 1980s brick because the brick looked cool, cars like the first Jaguar F-Type joined a new generation of turbocharged BMW M cars and numerous other performance cars – even from Porsche, who are normally fairly averse to fakery and excess pageantry – in incorporating engineered-in fuel dumps for the sake of noise. Even Lamborghini soiled its V12 and V10 supercars with this nonsense.

These are noises you could turn on or off depending on your drive mode or even, if you don’t fancy a rock-hard ride, with a dedicated exhaust button. Now every warmed-over microwave meal performance model lets out a huff and a guff when you change gear and gets all post-vindaloo when you let off the throttle.

And everyone ate it up, even the ordinarily cynical motoring journalists of the world listened to the Jag, the Porsches, the hot hatch subset, and totally fell for it. They fell for the surface-level sonic charms of cars with glorified cherry bombs and flatulent flappy paddles.

And there I was, young and totally new to the industry, scratching my head wondering what an Earth the world was coming to. I know I wasn’t mad thinking that it was excessive too, because Jaguar actually wasted very little time in toning down the F-Type’s spluttery vocals in subsequent years.

You only need to pop down to your local Friday night car meet to see what it and cars of its ilk spawned. Fiestas and VW Group hatchbacks congregate in their droves with Rice Crispy maps that make the McDonald’s drive through sound like Osama Bin Laden’s hovel the day he finally lost at hide and seek. 

There’s no short sharp pop and a lick of flame. Rather it’s quite an unpleasant sound not unlike an AK47 getting relieved of all its ammunition. It sounds like utter clart – tuneless, toneless and excessively loud, to the point I now worry that nice-sounding actual performance cars will be needlessly pigeonholed and vilified with them if they’re around too much longer. 

They’re also the opposite of a high-performance by-product. By and large these aftermarket ECU maps worsen performance and will actually send a lot of these cars to an early grave with the damage they do to engine internals. The sooner the better. It’s all utter slop.

Admittedly, today, a large group of enthusiasts are actually recognising how terrible some of this stuff sounds, be it OEM or aftermarket, with the notorious ‘DSG fart’ now widely – and hilariously – memed. Most people when you ask don’t actually like the needlessly loud pop and bang maps, either. But judging by the heat bearing down on it all, it’s probably too late for the scene to grow out of it.

And so the thorny issue for me is, would I see legislation come down on too much of the aftermarket for half a chance of this bottom-of-the-barrel scrap disappearing? The fear for what my answer would be is real.

To be clear, on racing cars and cool road cars, I like it. From Formula 1 and the World Rally Championship, to historic racing, a big old backfire and a lick of flame from the exhaust is the mark of an engine that’s being pushed to the absolute limit. Likewise, a McLaren or Ferrari that’s immolating the air at the tip of its exhaust when pushing hard is just so, so cool. 

But that is such a far cry from a Fiesta with an IBS map tempting the crusher’s embrace one limiter bash at a time. From the F-Type to the Fiesta with the ‘respect all builds’ window sticker, fake exhaust BS is terrible, has always been terrible and needs to get in the bin.