Porsche’s new 911 RSR has been a decent competitor in the GTE Pro category so far this year, especially in IMSA competition. The team has not had the greatest luck, and they’ve not really been the fastest in qualifying or practice, but they’ve been near the front for much of the racing season. Aside from the all-new chassis and mid-engine configuration, the four-liter flat six engine that Porsche is using in their RSR this year is an all-new piece based on a similar architecture to the GT3 road car’s engine. That engine has done a pretty great job of holding together for long endurance races, but it sure doesn’t sound as good as the Mezger-based engine it replaced from the 2016-spec cars. That is, until now.
Starting with the Le Mans test day, Porsche installed a new exhaust system for the 911 RSR that makes it significantly louder, more aggressive, and much more sonorous than the exhaust used through the first half of the car’s racing season. This is an impressive modification to the car, as it now sounds properly like a Porsche racing car. It must have added a bit of power as well because the pair of Porsche 911 RSRs set the fastest and second fastest times of the test.
Where the prior exhaust had a vibrato kind of “brrrrrrrr” undertone to the sound, especially at lower revs, the new system appears to have completely done away with that tone. The new exhaust also returns some of that high-RPM high-pitch that was missing from Exhaust 1.0, giving the car a much more appropriate character. The first segment of this video proves everything you’d ever need to know about this exhaust, as it shows first a Corvette C7.R drive past beating the drums of its giant V8, followed immediately by a new 911 RSR which completely drowns out the sound of the ‘Vette. That’s all the proof we need, we’re in love again.
