I have recently bought a 2011 6MT sedan to replace my 2009 xS sedan. In general I'm happy with my decision, except I was surprised to find that the 6MT is missing the engine "growl" that you hear inside the xS car. I miss that a lot. I presume it's intake sound because the sound pretty similar from the outside when revved in park/neutral. But not from the drivers seat.

There is no obvious difference in the intake systems (at least that I can see from above). I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Infiniti had a special "sound port" to bring the intake growl into the cabin.

I tried searching the threads but found nothing. Does anyone know about this? Any reason that it wouldn't be on an '11 6MT?

Thanks,
Greg

 

I somewhat answered my own question - the '09 xS has large Helmholtz resonator chambers below each airbox that are totally missing on the '11 6MT. Normally those are used to quiet intake sounds, but I wonder if these were tuned to amplify it?