2004 Corolla engine noise

[Gatorfreak]

I have an automatic 2004 Corolla. My only complaint with the car (so far) is that the engine noise is a bit much when accelerating aggressively. Has this been discussed before? I could put sound-damping material under the hood and on the firewall but that's all I can think of. Curious if it's a common complaint and if people have found good solutions.

Oh, and there's always turning up the radio.

[Chris Corolla S]

Yes people have been saying this about the 1zz-fe for years. It's normal. Either you grow to like it or you turn up the music

[SSJ_Rolla]

Yeah its a bit loud but u do get used to it

[Philip]

The ol "1ZZFE Snarl" Yup, they all do it and for two, possible three reasons:

A) the exhaust header is close to the firewall instead of being on the other side of the head (as in earlier years) facing the radiator.

B) the exhaust header is TUBING steel ... not thick cast iron.

C) the "snarl" lessens with miles .... say 20k or so. Whether this is due to carbon or engine break-in is unknown to me. BUT, the snarl never goes away.

It's not a fault ... it's a feature!

[mrcee]

I solved the engine noise problem by wrapping the tube header with a Thermo-Tec header blanket. I also wrapped the straight pipes between the converters. This reduced the noise by about one third. It still has a nice growl but without the high pitch. I didn't wrap the converters figuring the don't echo much ( I could be wrong there). In retrospect I would have wrapped first with the fiberglass tape for headers then put on the blanket. An after market header double wrapped would be great. I figure my Corolla makes just a little more noise than a Camry 4. Since V6 engines have a header by the firewall, I think Corolla's main noise producer is the tubing exhaust manifold. Hope this helps.

[hooolala]

you should try to drive a NEON and base model civic... they make alot more noise than corolla... especially when you drive over 60mph...

i know cuz i own a 96 neon and 00 civic DX before