Header options advice needed

[j.fro]

The exhaust is one of the places the Porsche used to keep the 986S down on power and out of the 996 market share. If you compare the two cars' exhausts and consider how much more power the 3.4 makes over the 3.2 it starts to become obvious. Anyhow, better headers are step 1. I've had the Chinese headers on my car for over 10 years now and they worked great. Were I to do it again, I'd go with the larger tube 987 Chinese headers which are only slight more $$. I've got the Fabspeed secondary pipes with 100 cell cats welded in. The advantage over stock is the larger diameter along with the much less restrictive cats. Originally I had the pipes without cats coupled to a Borla muffler. The SCCA judges started hassling me about the car being over their dB level so that's why I added the cats. After a few years the Borla fell apart so I had single chamber 2.5" Flowmaster mufflers welded in place, maintaining the 2.5" diameter throughout the system. Sound is good, power is 244 at the rear wheels.
From what I understand, the stock muffler actually flows pretty well despite the small pipe diameter. As well,it's got the acoustic tuning to eliminate drone. Probably the biggest advantage to dumping the stock muffler is the weight loss.
Hope this gives you some ideas to consider.