Welcome aboard and congrats on your first P-car. Please upload some pics when time permits! We're big fans of Porsche-Porn and like to look at other member's new rides.
Recommend doing a thread search on exhaust systems. You'll find a wealth of info. With the help of the folks here, I did some extensive research on this myself. Here are the alternatives I explored:
1. Complete Fabspeed system. Sounds great. Leaves big hole in checkbook.
2. Top Speed 1 muffler. Sounds great. Much smaller hole in checkbook.
3. Dansk muffler. About $1K. Receives mixed reviews. Looks like a sausage.
4. Cat bypass pipes. You can eliminate the secondary cats on your 2000 S with no emissions issues, as long as there's no visual inspection. Feedback from those who have done so indicate a little better sound. Fabspeed cat deletes run around $600. Top Speed sells them for much less. There is some concern that the cat deletes get hot and may cook the drive boots.
5. Crios modification. Developed on this forum. If you have a little patience and a really long drill bit, you can punch a couple of holes in your muffler and improve the sound.
6. Desnorkle your intakes. More delightful intake sound. Cheap. Do a thread search.
7. Porsche Sport Exhaust (PSE). You'll need to take out a second mortgage, or you may get lucky and find a used one on eBay. One of our members did. Lucky dog...
8. Fister/Pedro modification. If you have welding skills or know someone who does, this is essentially a poor man's PSE. You can also send your muffler to FD Motorsports and they'll do the mod for you.
I'm sure folks will step in to add alternatives to the list.
Most of the folks here will tell you that none of these will do much to improve your pony count. Less restrictive headers and cat bypass pipes will improve the flow and give you a few horses, but the cost is high for such a modest improvement. Most of us engage in exhaust mods to give the car a little more personality, or to reduce the weight of the system (that muffler is a real boat anchor). Keep in mind though, that Porsche designed the stock exhaust system as a whole to serve as a vibration damper to prevent annoying exhaust drone at certain speeds.
I'm currently in the middle of a do-it-yourself Fister/Pedro mod, as I have access to a welder and mandrel bender. We're going to ceramic powder coat the whole system when finished to cut down on heat transfer. I'll post pics when complete.
Long post, sorry. Hope it helps. Good luck and welcome!
