Horn upgrade suggestions
 

I'm looking to upgrade to a louder horn from my stock wimpy sounding horn. What are some horns that are really loud. I prefer electric over air due to the weight factor. I have heard of Stebel horns. They are usually 139db range. Are there louder ones out there? Thanks in advance

i think 139 is plenty loud, i think they say that at 140 you can experience immediate and permanent hearing loss. wouldn't surprise me if thats why its 139 and not higher.

it also helps at where it is located. Currently i have one of the 3 trumpet"big rig" horns, it's load, but not when the hood is closed. You can hear it on the highway, or make co-workers crap themselves when they go under your hood at work

I had this Dixie Horn for about 5 years and it finally quit working. The air compressor would run, but not sequence properly and 2 of the horns would no longer make any sounds. I used this horn in my 1993 Chevy van and my 1971 Dodge Demon. As soon as I bought my Metro, I installed it, but removed it when I discovered it was broke.

I am not one to let a $60.00 horn go in the trashcan, so I modified the horn so it would at least be use-able. I removed the top cover and removed the rotation diaphragm and springs and then used silicone to seal the horn and also block off all of the ports but one................

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i3...tf/horn003.jpg

I then let the silicone dry and used the longest (loudest) horn and hooked it to the single port. I now have a very loud single tone air horn in my Metro to replace the cheezy horn it has. It sounds like a big rig horn.............

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i3...tf/horn002.jpg

I got a junk yard horn from a Buick Electra to put on my old Datsun. It sure turned some heads.

The higher sound level horns are also generally higher pitched.
So while being loud,
they don't get much attention.
There are a set of horns at the auto store from WOLO (and others)
that are 125 dB.
One horn is high pitch, the other low.
Together they have that great old Buick sound.
Mine are wired so the high pitch 'beeps' normally,
and they both go on if the brakes are applied.
This gives the big sound when needed,
but the friendlier high pitch when you want to just beep Hi.
I've done this on my motorcycles and in my car.
works great and that dual tone gets noticed.

Tech note,
older people don't hear the hi pitch very well,
it takes twice the power to raise the level 3 dB (ie 125 to 128)
but it takes 10 dB more to sound louder to the ear.

Hi,

The Fiamm horns are pretty darn loud, IME.

Harbor Freight sells some pretty inexpensive air horns. The horns are made out of PVC. I think they are rated at about 135db. I have one on my 1988 Escort, because the factory horns weren't very loud and sometimes the horn button in the steering wheel didn't work so I reworked it with a $25. air horn.

I took the horns from an older Cadillac.
Two electric horns mounted on the radiator support behind the front bumper.
The original wiring wouldn't carry enough current to operate them both at the same time so I wired a relay from the old wiring.
Horn wiring to operate relay.
Relay directs battery power to the horns.
Work good, last long time G.I.
Schultz

I met a dude that had a train horn on his civic. It turned heads half a mile from him.:D

You can hear your loud freakin horn on this video.............

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...h_100_3160.jpg

Ha Ha! That's funny!
beep, beep.
HONK! HONK!

Just remember that those are typically higher pitched horns.
Loud but high.
The higher tones don't travel far and they are very directional.
I have one of those mounted on one of my bikes.
Yes it's loud, but not unless it's aimed at the target.
I want to move it to the front where the it could do the most good.

my 84 bronco 2 came stock with a high/low tone thats pretty loud/deep. i would scrounge junkyards and grab some horns from the oldest/biggest vehicle you can find

Suggest you get the horns from a junker 80's Caddy Sedan. Great sound quality and volume. They will not sound like a pip-squeak kazoo so common among itty-bitty cars.

As Teddy Roosevelt once said, "Drive quietly and blow a real-horn.":D
Or was that Hank Ford?:rolleyes:

bought two highway blasters by Fiamm, and blew a 15 amp fuse after using the low horn once. When I get a chance, I need to get a relay setup installed, and mount the high and low into the car somewhere.

The set I bought has two horns a high tone and a low tone horn.

This reminds me of a funny story...

A younger 20-something buddy of mine, who doesn't exactly 'color bewtween the lines' outfitted his Chevy truck with a honest to god genuine locomotive train horn!

As per usual, Scotty called me one day and told me what he was going to do. I knew right away what this was all about, he 'aquired' this horn and was going to do this, with or without my help. Per usual, he wanted to pick my brain (he usually doesn't have the know-how for this type of thing, but knows what to ask).

I gave him some advice on how I'd go about it, nitrogen better than CO2, welding-type cylinder rather than air ride compressor, need for a regulator, mounting strap design for mounting the 3000psi cylinder safey, etc. Then came my usual disclaimer/lecture "it's most likely illegal, be very careful you don't give some old lady a heart attack or cause an accident with that thing" I'm sure he was rolling his eyes on the other end of the phone, but that is how our relationship goes... he does some pretty outreagious things (the Park City UT Olympic torch - FBI incident comes to mind), but he's a good kid that I try to keep from hurting himself and others. At the same time, I'm living vicariously through some of his antics that I myself aren't going to do.

He shows up at my house about a week later, w/truck, and literally rattles my windows with this thing! :eek: He comes to the front door, one headlight literally rattled loose from it's mount and popped out of the bucket, and an old small windsheild crack 'ran' all the way across to the other side. Of course, he's grinning from ear-to-ear :D

Needless to say, my neighbors were not amused, but I sure was! :D

AIR HORNS has Quicktime recordings of each of their numerous air horns. Each horn(s) has it own 12v compressor.

Probably find them cheaper at Nextag/Amazon/JCWhittney.

My junker '96 J30 Infinity horn is pathetic :p. My grandson's trike bell sounds better. :thumbup:

Some of the horns on this site look very simular to the ones I bought at Harbor Freight.

Who's car is up front and where did they get those turn signals???????? :eek:

Like an earlier post here, I used junkyard horns.

Car originally had 2 in front of radiator. I removed them, put two behind each corner of front bumper. Sound comes out wheel wells due to lots of clearance there. Powered by relays. I got the horns from junker Volvos but I think most stock horns from medium-large cars should be pretty loud. Two horns of different pitches are more piercing than two of same pitch.

I find most offending cars that need to hear my horns are approaching from the side, not from ahead of me. So the side horns do a great job. You can hear them in front too of course.

That is Christine. It is a 1998 and used to have the newer style lights, but I converted to the older sealed beam style for better visibility out here in deer country. When converting to the older lamps, I had to add turn signals since they used to be integrated with the composite lamps.

I switched all my lighting (except stop/Tail) to LED lamps. The turn signal lamps are actually made for the heavy truck industry and are mounted on trailers or the rear of box trucks. They were like $16.00 each and I already had mounting grommets and modified my bumper to fit the lamps and to be more aerodynamic.

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i3...etf/led003.jpg

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i3...etf/led009.jpg

Wolo Bad Boy is pretty compact and dirt easy to install

Train horn? Tell your friend to get a REAL horn, not one of them wimpy train horns. :D Two different Ship Horns