the dreaded exhaust question (again)

[backman_z]

I am fairly new to the forum.
I have had my 04 Boxster 2.7 for less than a year.
I have not started tinkering yet, but plan to start this summer.

So I am not sure that I would take my word for it, but here is my 2 cents.

From what I have read here and on a couple other forums, the two things that most people seam to agree will give you the biggest bang for your buck:

1- Bypassing the secondary cats. This improves flow and decreases weight. Definate improvement in power, with the weight decrease, it is a combined big plus. Compred to some of the other exhaust mods, it costs less.

2- Underdive pulley. One of the cheapes mods available, and gains have been well proven. The stock pulley is 6 inches. Most of the underdrive pulleys available are 5", but there are a couple 4" one out there (Flat6).

This is where I am going to start; bypass cats and an undredrive pulley. Flat6 and his suppliers seam to be confident that the 4" pulley does not underdrive anything too much, so I will likely try their pulley. There is a guy near me with a dyno, so I am hoping to do a pre-mod dyno, and then on after each mod.

[The Radium King]

the underdrive pulley does appear to be a good solution - i'm watching the forums to see what people's long-term impressions of them are with respect to alternator operation; i've read that the battery light can come on at idle; ok for a race car, but i'm using mine as a daily driver/gt.

that's also an interesting idea of deleting the primary cats and using the secondary cats instead; if you get the secondary pipes for a previous year, they might even already come with the bungs? you mentioned CEL's; was that from the exhaust mods or the intake mods? i'm wondering how the engine management system would read across the secondary cats.

from everything i've seen, the best way to improve torque is with a 3.4 swap. such a swap apparently needs a better exhaust to really perform. so, to avoid redoing anything (and spending more $$$) i'm just looking at mods for my 3.2 that could eventually be reused with the 3.4. and if i put the $$$ into the swap, i would probably want to compliment it with a quality exhaust.

thanks all.