Well "it" is just another feature. Just like some cars have manuals and others don't. Do not expect every car to ship with short race exhausts. A modder can easily make every car spit flames if he so wishes...
To reduce turbo lag in turbocharged cars, anti-lag systems are installed. They usually work by delaying the ignition or using a bypass valve that lets fuel enter the exhaust port of the cylinder. This usually causes some kind of backfiring as these systems allow the combustion process to continue inside the exhaust system, in order to keep the turbo spinning when the engine is not under load
Definitely recommend these for a good understanding of how anti-lag systems work. Engineering Explained is probably the best channel for learning about cars
Since the after fire looks better and different from normal fire in game, maybe we will get better fire? Since it looks unrealistic at the moment.
Honestly, this is actually quite likely. It has been asked many times, and wouldn't be as much work as other sounds.
Will there be better samples? As someone said in the 0.10.0.1 bug reporting thread, the samples cap at 3Khz, which is horrible.
I found a test blend file in the zip archive of the Covet. The old sbeam file is still there as well. My guess is the devs forgot to remove them. You can use this to make sound mods using the new FMOD system.
Remember that the tone of a horn changes the longer or harder that you press it. You can get very different sounds out of your average car horn depending on whether you tap it or really lay into it. That would require some complex work from the sound department, and I think they're currently focused on improving the engine noises of the vehicles people complained about last update.
You are correct, I can see why the horn should be a low priority at the moment, it would be a nice addition though.
Just out of curiosity, what setups & circumstances will cause a car to display afterfire, both in game and in real life. The one thing I've heard about it is, older, less efficiently-managed engines will afterfire fairly easily, while newer, more "perfect" engines won't afterfire unless specifically programmed to. The best explanation I heard was, unburned fuel gets dumped into the exhaust and can't burn because all the oxygen is gone; then it gets blown out the tailpipe and lights off when it hits open air. So, thus, not having a cat, no/straight-through mufflers, and a shorter pipe length would all, supposedly, make afterfire easier to see? This would, at least, explain why standard cars, even older ones, wouldn't do it stock; with such long pipes and so many things in the way, you wouldn't see flames at the end of the pipe unless the car was running rich as all get out.
similar to what you said, the older a car gets, the more likely it is to backfire. if it's a worn out motor, it will backfire. with race vehicles, it's unburnt fuel. new cars cannot be programmed to do it though. with diesels, it's most likely when you blow a turbo that it will start shooting flames, if it doesn't run away in the process.
I still wonder when we're going to get the tow truck, I think it is close since they've added the node welding feature. It would be pretty easy to attach a vehicle based of that.