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This paper describes the use of an interactive NVH simulator in simulating and designing the sound character of a vehicle with a multi-mode engine and active exhaust valve. When designing a vehicle for sound quality, it is not sufficient to merely record some discreet operating conditions and modify these in a traditional sound quality program. The ability to simulate the sound quality of the vehicle over the full operating envelope is a necessity. Additionally, the ability to break down the sound contributions from intake, exhaust and other key contributors to the driver's ear, and manipulate these independently is also essential. In the case described here, an additional factor makes it mandatory that an accurate vehicle sound simulation is performed. The state of the engine and exhaust contribution, and thus the sound of the vehicle, change based on several parameters - vehicle speed, load demand and gear.

The Ford GT is the modern re-creation of the 60's era supercar. The powertrain sound quality of the vehicle must enhance its powerful nature, meet regulatory requirements, and maintain a targeted level of refinement. The Ford GT acoustic engineering team used time domain sound decomposition and sound synthesis techniques to determine the sub-system source sounds from surrogate vehicles. The donor source sounds (e.g. exhaust system) are recombined to produce the customer perceived vehicle listening experience from these sub-systems. Target sounds are developed by modifying sub-systems by level, frequency dominance, and order balance. Proposed target sounds are verified by a jury and the results are used for early target agreement and cascading to component targets. This exercise allows development of a customer focused powertrain target sound based on realistic hardware assumptions before any prototypes are available.