Hmmm.. The smell from new engines varies from somewhat unpleasant to downright sickening. Vehicles are prepped with some degree of undercoating when they are shipped overseas. The crossfire is already undercoated from the factory (sorry if you paid extra to get undercoating and some of this coating must 'burn' off during the initial ownership period.

Its not as bad as my 'other' brand of vehicles at my dealer. They come from Japan LOADED with coating.. including the exhaust! The cars must be run for several hours when we receive them.. and the coating literally SMOKES as it burns off.

As for the noise issue- WD: As you have said- the noise your engine made is normal- but noise is a very subjective issue, so I can certainly not make a guess as to the NVH concerns of a car online.