SLS Midpipe

[PAracer]

I'm a bit surprised that I haven't seen this pipe around the forum. Just installed an SLS midpipe on my MSP last weekend. I have to say that I am pleased with the results.

I did have to modify the pipe a bit to clear the subframe. I also installed the pipe without the catback. I just welded a turndown on the end of the pipe. So, the pipe ends just before the shifter.

The car is a bit loud, but not so much that I cant tolerate it. Quiet at idle, a bit of drone on the highway, lots of drone on decell, a nice roar on accelleration. Also, the butt-dyno says it picked up a few ponies. No cel yet after 150 or so miles.

 

[njaremka]

no exhaust after the mid-pipe, and only a BIT loud? did you have a hole in your exhaust before? i would be worried about fumes in the car when sitting at a light. at the least, you should move the exit to the side in front of the wheel.

 

[PAracer]

no exhaust after the mid-pipe, and only a BIT loud? did you have a hole in your exhaust before? i would be worried about fumes in the car when sitting at a light. at the least, you should move the exit to the side in front of the wheel.

Nope. The exhaust was fine before. Unless you count that the muffler broke off last week. lol.

I do plan on moving the exit to the side of the car. I need to do that to participate in track days.

 

[jdwk]

What did you have to modify? Where did you get the pipe? Seems like if it required modification, a retailer suchs as PG would have to disclose that.

 

[SCMP3]

mine dumps right in front of the gas tank angled down. never had a problem with fumes....till i recently blew my turbo seals so burning oil smell sucks ass

 

[jdwk]

Yeah I e-mailed Ken at Protege Garage, and he said it bolts right up to the stock exhaust without modification. Having a very hard time parting with $400, but if it frees up the power as much as everyone says, it's probably worth it. Looks like more stock parts to pile up in my shed. If and when I ever sell this car, it's going to take a week to return it to stock.

 

[jdwk]

So I installed my SLS mid pipe yesterday. Yes, it doesn't fit above the crossmember as is. You either need to space out the crossmember with washers, or bend the hangers on the SLS to hold it up further. Urethane hangers may help as well. I did a little of both. These are clearly hand made and all will be a little different. Mine was visibly crooked which made getting it to slide over the 3 studs on the S pipe a massive chore. Also, the bolt holes were not clean and required a lot of sanding and boring out to fit on my s-pipe. For the price, I am pretty disappointed with the fit and finish.

Now installing it, I finally measure the actual diameter of our stock pipes, and it's pretty much 1 7/8" at all the flanges. It's actually just a tad under on the S pipe opening and the start of the stock cat-back.
Due to the nature of circles, 1 7/8" is actually considerable smaller than 2". About 14%.

So I actually felt kind of silly bolting a 2.5" pipe in between two 1 7/8" pipes, but hoped that replacing the two stock cats with one 2.5" cat would make a big difference.

Unfortunately, according to my GPS based 1/4 timer it made no difference whatsoever. In fact, it was alarmingly identical to my run with the stock mid pipe. There might be a gain that is in the noise, but I certainly can't feel a difference.

Now with a proper down pipe and cat back as well, I am sure upgrading the exhaust helps (unless Turbo magazine fudged their results). However, it appears an exhaust is generally only as good as it's worst restriction, and just by taking a quick glance, that restriction looks like the S-pipe.

So anyone have a larger S-pipe? I guess I should learn how to weld.

 

[jdwk]

So a little update on the SLS. I apparently didn't bend the hangers enough and now after a week or so of driving around the mid pipe will occasionally rattle against the cross member at certain rpms and levels of acceleration. So I will need to take it off and bend it some more, but I am debating just putting the stock pipe back on and selling the SLS since it didn't appear to gain anything and I don't feel like spending another $500 or so on the rest of the exhaust. This will definitely go in my "Fail" column in my list of MSP experiments.