so i thought i was doing good by adding an air vent to the engine compartment, the cutout is in a recess in the center of the back seat which is directly in front of the throttle body, unfortunately as a side effect the amount of sucking noise above 2k is rediculous, can barely hear the exhaust, wife is not sure of it, she'd sooner hear the exhaust, i told her the only fix now is some headers, can anything be done to quiet it down without hurting the flow? i'm pretty sure i already know the answer

You could make an intake tube that relocates the flame arrestor... But that would most likely reduce air flow........ I would say deal with it or close up the vent hole you created.

Sucking noise is good ! Balanced with exhaust note , even better !

Some people haven't heard those noises in years!

i'm definately not complaining, it almost sounds supercharged with the whistle, i think it sounds awesome, just doing some reconisence in case the wife starts *****n, i think making the exhaust louder is the only fix here, happy wife happy life!!

Headers aren't going to hide the sucking or whistle sound... They will increase the sound level behind the boat, but they wont increase the sound in the engine compartment, unless you have a terrible header leak.....

Did it improve performance? If not, cover it back up from the inside, maybe with a piece of starboard affixed with wing nuts. That way you can remove it when you want to, but the noise is gone for most boating.

You could have it worse... My 496 water pump squeaks... Can't hear it with the engine hatch down, but I can only imagine what it sounds like at 4500 rpm.....

sucking sound lol. Reminds me of this commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuoNtFUdnn4

thats what i was thinking, i can't say it did anything for performance but just the thought of getting more fresh cooler air in these suffocation boxes is enough for me