Anyone have a custom exhaust/ stock muffler?

[mxjosh82]

Anybody on here have a custom exhaust with the stock muffler still? I'm trying to see what type of gains you had if so? I like the look/ sound of the stock muffler and I'm obviously not looking to make crazy power with the car, but would be nice to let it breathe a little better. Only things that I don't like is I feel like I would have a nice open exhaust and then have it tapper back down to go threw the stock muffler. Thoughts/ opinions?

 

[Jo060]

I went to a local hole in the wall exhaust shop, had a 3" stainless exhaust done with a magnaflow muffler and welded on the stock MSP tip. $275 and 1 hour later I was out the door with new muffler and exhaust. I've never been a fan of magnaflow as it reminds me of big jacked up trucks, but I made a deal with the guy...if it sounds like s***, I get the work done for $50 but damn I've never had so many compliments on just an exhaust tone before.

If you get a bigger exhaust but keep the stock muffler you'll be going from small to big to small, if anything get a bigger exhaust, muffler, and keep the tip since it looks much better than most upgraded exhausts.

 

[mxjosh82]

Right, thats what I was thinking is that it was going to be going small big small and didn't want, but like I said I like the look of the stock muffler. Could you tell a performance difference? I've heard of boost slightly increasing just from a better exhaust. Do you have a stock or aftermarket down pipe?

 

[Jo060]

For the time being my DP is stock. I did notice a change, the car feels healthier ( if that makes sense ) and acceleration seems to have picked up. I can really hear the turbo now, it screams.
I took out cats/ resonators so sometimes when I downshift I can hear a gurgle gurgle noise which is pretty interesting.

 

[Spiced MSP]

sort of like the SRT4 gurgle? lol, mine does it too, but definitely not as pronounced as the srt

 

[destineal]

Mine snaps, crackles ,and pops.

 

[mxjosh82]

For the time being my DP is stock. I did notice a change, the car feels healthier ( if that makes sense ) and acceleration seems to have picked up. I can really hear the turbo now, it screams.
I took out cats/ resonators so sometimes when I downshift I can hear a gurgle gurgle noise which is pretty interesting.

Where was your custom exhaust bolted to? the J pipe?

 

[jdwk]

I had a magnaflow muffler on my MX6 and it sounded great, tons of complements and no drone. Another C6 owner swapped his stock cans for magnaflow cans and they also sound great. I have yet to hear a magnaflow system that doesn't sound good. When I think of those awful sounding trucks, I think of Flowmaster.

$275 is a decent price. When I was planning on getting Pope's dp, I got a quote for doing the DP back in 3" using a high flow cat, maganflow cat and muffler in a stock config, and he said it would run about $700. I told the guy I wanted it as quiet as we could get it, and he said that would be as quiet as a 3" exhaust could be.

3" is clearly overkill for the MSP since most flow calculators don't have it causing any restriction until 450hp, but there is nothing wrong with a little overkill.

A 2.5" I think would be about perfect, and I was close to pulling the trigger on the reproduction Corksport DP, but I just couldn't justify the $1100 the whole thing would cost me on a very old car that has other more important shortcomings to solve first.

I was told by a number of people that the primary restriction in our exhaust was our double catted mid pipe, so I bought a catted SLS instead, which was a huge mistake. It did absolutely nothing and since I was unsuccessful in finding the two piece Corksport, I just ended up selling it at a significant loss even though it was on the car for just a few miles.

From that experience, or even just by looking at the pipes, I am fairly certain there is nothing to be gained unless you start a the downpipe and work your way back. The S and J pipe diameter are alarmingly small when you have them off the car, well under 2". Putting anything larger beyond that without addressing that first seems like a waste.

 

[Jo060]

sort of like the SRT4 gurgle? lol, mine does it too, but definitely not as pronounced as the srt

Exactly.

Where was your custom exhaust bolted to? the J pipe?

Yup.

From that experience, or even just by looking at the pipes, I am fairly certain there is nothing to be gained unless you start a the downpipe and work your way back. The S and J pipe diameter are alarmingly small when you have them off the car, well under 2". Putting anything larger beyond that without addressing that first seems like a waste.

Agreed. The S & J pipes are ridiculously and embarrassingly small/restrictive.

I doubt I gained a large amount of power (I took off all cats/resonators), I haven't put it on a dyno, I do feel as though there was a small amount of power freed up. My girlfriend sometimes takes the MSP out (she can't tell a tire from a remote control) and mentioned that it seemed to "speed up quicker". I asked her if it sounded different because I re did the exhaust. She says...You did? She was oblivious.

*doh!
haha

 

[jdwk]

I used a mounted phone using a 1/4 mile app. It was the exact same temp and weather on back to back days. Stock vs SLS mid pipe. The butt dyno thought I gained a little bit too, but the phone had the exact same trap speed down to the tenth of a mile per hour. It was in the middle of summer last year so maybe cooler denser air would have resulted in more horsepower and therefore a larger gain. But 2x of nothing is still nothing.

 

[Jo060]

It would be interesting to see on a dyno out of curiosity.
I've heard about that app for android (assuming that's what you're talking about), but it seemed pretty sketchy when my friend tried it but who knows.