JEVON

As a former Health and Safety Officer, 90db is the first action level for noise reduction measures, 95db the second and 97db the thrid. Each level dictated what length of time a worker could be exposed to the noise level without noiuse abatement or ear defenders.

Basically, you could take your employer to court if he exposed you to more than 95db of noise for more than 5 minutes in one working day without the prevision of noise abatement or ear protection.

130db is excessive and you'll be experiencing tone deafness in the high frequency hearing range in a year or two if you have 130db in the drivers seat!!!

I would get them checked again. In the mean time I'll look up the maximum exposure times for differing noise levels.

Get some ear defenders!

Paper Lawyer

I'm a lawyer with no experience of being a sound engineer or anything like that. 130dB is just plain silly - you need to do your readings again

skiddy1903

as jevon says 90dB when measured as an Lepd (which takes account of exposure time, so this means 90dB constantly for 8 hours a day) is the first action level. being exposed to 130dB for 1 minute would be the equivelant to being exposed to 103dB for 8 hours. so you can see that at 130dB it wouldn't take long to damage your hearing....incidently 140dB is enough to cause insatantanious damage to your hearing.

were you sticking the microphone up the exhaust?........this might explain it as this would definetly cause the results to be a lot higher than they should be.

if you are wanting to know how much noise you as a driver is exposed to then take the reading beside your ear in the driver seat. if the track day are going to take a drive by reading at a specific distance then try and recreate this. if you are still getting very large numbers then there is definetly something wrong with your meter..............either that or you actually bought an S2k with a jet engine.....

hornyhonda

Thanks for the replies guys, I did take the reading from right by the exhaust which probably caused the high results, I shall take another reading from 10metres away another time soon. The meter was bought from www.maplin.co.uk for anyone whos interested or wants to check the spec.

I did a reading from inside the car with the soft-top driving along, this was around 96db. The car idles at around the same level also but this time the reading was taken outside and again very close to the tailpipe.

The 130dB level was measured while doing a rev in neutral, the rev counter was in VTEC also.

I have decided to change my exhaust for the track day and do a quick retest, I think I should be ok with the decat pipe and the AEM.... at least I hope so.

tebs

That explains it. their stuff is shite! i should know i worked there when i was at uni.

Dracoro

Ideally, you need to measure it in the same way as the track will. Obviously the drive by is trickier to replicate (and this reading is ultimately what REALLY matters). Anyway, most will test half a metre away, 45 degrees up at 3/4 revs (some just say 4500rpm). So position meter two feet behind (and in line with) the rear centre brake light and test at 4500 and also at 6750 revs).

GTFCTIM

I wasn't allowed on a trackday with mine.

It came out at 107dB.

I'm sure i'd have been ok with the bungs in. (I forgot them).

hornyhonda

Which track was that Tim?

Paper Lawyer

I'm not so sure, 107db is more than twice as loud as my T1-R - that would be one hell of a silencer to bring it down below 100dB.

GTFCTIM

Elvington.