Cheap mufflers - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

stateofidleness · 10-02-2011, 09:32 PM

Just a heads up for anyone looking for a cheap aftermarket muffler. I bought this exact muffler a few months back for $275ish shipped and it has the crooked pipes as well, so this is even cheaper if you have a welder or don't mind a slight imperfection

Porsche 986 Boxster 2.5L 2.7L Boxster S 3.2L 97-04 Performance Exhaust System | eBay

Kinda pisses me off because mine are "defective", but when I bought them the ad did not claim them like that...

Appleguy · 10-02-2011, 11:57 PM

How crooked is "crooked"?

Any drone issues?

stateofidleness · 10-03-2011, 11:58 AM

Only one of the outlets is crooked and it's about 1/4" off. It almost points into the other outlet pipe. There's a small brace above the two outlets that would need to be cut/removed and the "crooked" outlet bent straight, then rewelded.

Truviking · 10-03-2011, 06:28 PM

I was looking at those and wondered how they would sound..When do you plan on installing them? Let me know if they are TOO loud as described in the description..

stateofidleness · 10-03-2011, 06:52 PM

I've actually had mine on the car for a month or two now. I absolutely love it! The weight savings were awesome and it really "cleans up" the underside of the back end when working under the car.

The "drone" is hardly noticeable. It's actually a very nice throaty sound and is in now way a "head turner" or "rice" sounding. very subtle, but idle sounds great and shift changes are a bit more pronounced in the cabin. once I hit about 50, it kinda goes back to a very stock sound (which I loved at that range).

I'd do it again in a heartbeat, but the crooked thing is a bit annoying... i'll get it fixed soon.

Truviking · 10-03-2011, 07:29 PM

Thanks stateofidleness..I was a lil skeptical about them after reading about buying cheap exhaust systems..But being 304 stainless and looking at the pics, it looks like a very well fabricated unit..And for that price $129.00 even if you dont like them you are NOT out of alot of money versus buying a more expensive set and NOT liking them...I'm going to ponder over it for a few more days or til someone says the right thing to convince me to get them...do you have any pics or sound clips?

DenverSteve · 10-03-2011, 08:26 PM

That is a great price. I saw it over the weekend - but important to read that it is the RACING exhaust not street exhaust. Therefore, it will certainly be louder than I would want. The crooked issue is easily resolved during installation.

Autobot152 · 10-04-2011, 04:58 AM

Just bought one. The seller emailed me photos of the installed exhaust and the crooked tips. It is noticeable but easily fixed. Seller mentioned most customers pay around $35-60 to straighten the tips. Hope to receive and install this weekend. I can post pics and sound clips if anyone is interested, but will most likely be the same as the others that have purchased this exhaust system. Can't beat the price!!!

Appleguy · 10-04-2011, 08:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Autobot152

Just bought one. The seller emailed me photos of the installed exhaust and the crooked tips. It is noticeable but easily fixed. Seller mentioned most customers pay around $35-60 to straighten the tips. Hope to receive and install this weekend. I can post pics and sound clips if anyone is interested, but will most likely be the same as the others that have purchased this exhaust system. Can't beat the price!!!

Can you post the photo of that they emailed you? Im just curious of how much straightening is needed. Also don't for get to post some sound clips so we can hear that bad boy!!!

Truviking · 10-04-2011, 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Autobot152

Just bought one. The seller emailed me photos of the installed exhaust and the crooked tips. It is noticeable but easily fixed. Seller mentioned most customers pay around $35-60 to straighten the tips. Hope to receive and install this weekend. I can post pics and sound clips if anyone is interested, but will most likely be the same as the others that have purchased this exhaust system. Can't beat the price!!!

Yes let me know how it turns out and yes please post sound clips of BEFORE and AFTER the install..I am really leaning towards getting some..

RandallNeighbour · 10-04-2011, 11:22 AM

This is the same muffler that Che (Deluboz parts out of Dallas) gave me to put on my car and test four years ago. It was crooked too when installed, but my mechanic just used a crowbar to bend one side of the muffler up and straighten it out. That's not a big deal.

It sounds great with the top down, but with the top up and windows up, the resonance between 2-3k rpm is awful. Whenever I'm now caught in the rain and forced to raise my top, I dread it.

My wife no longer enjoys riding in the car with me and everyone who rides in the car says "that muffler sure is LOUD. How do you drive this car without experiencing hearing loss?" And when I drive in high rise parking garages, I set off alarms left and right with the vibration the sound causes.

Now temper all this with the fact that if you avoid putting around in town in the 2-3k rpm range the resonance is absent. So if you don't drive your car to work or for errands and you never sit in traffic, it's not that big of a deal.

However, whenever I have someone in the car and I want to speak to them or make them feel comfortable, I'm constantly upshifting or downshifting to get away from the resonance issue.

At redline, this muffler sounds glorious. Absolutely glorious. So at the track I know exactly when to shift without looking down at my tach, even while wearing a balaclava and a helmet and having an instructor screaming in my right ear about how poorly I am driving most of the time

The problem with all these twin chamber mufflers for our cars (regardless of price) is that they experience nasty resonance at 2-3k rpm. I've yet to see one advertised as a better sounding, louder muffler for the boxster that is guaranteed to have the resonance engineered out of it. I don't think they exist. Now the Dansk Porsche approved sport muffler is different because it's a modified single chamber unit.

Upside: This thing is a fraction of the weight of your factory muffler and your trunk won't get super-hot if you install it.

Steve Tinker · 10-04-2011, 02:27 PM

I wonder if it would make a difference to the obnoxious sound if you "wrapped" each of the 2 muffler chambers with exhaust wrap as used on exhaust headers for heat reduction??
Before I ceramic coated my motorcycle headers I previously had them wrapped which reduced the noise quite a bit - looked poxy but it cut down the heat and noise. The look of the wrapping wouldn't matter too much as these muffler chambers as they are under the rear of the car and out of sight.....

RandallNeighbour · 10-04-2011, 03:27 PM

Steve, would the lack of heat dissapation hurt anything?

bobdogwv · 10-04-2011, 04:58 PM

I couldn't wait any longer, I purchased one tonight as well. I figured at that price, what could it hurt.

Autobot152 · 10-05-2011, 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Appleguy

Can you post the photo of that they emailed you? Im just curious of how much straightening is needed. Also don't for get to post some sound clips so we can hear that bad boy!!!

Here are pics from John (Che) along with the message regarding the pics:

>>>This exhaust is the most worst mis-alignment tips, first few pictures show the >>>tips not even. Last few pictures show after cut off and re-weld the tips.
>>>
>>>Hope these helps. Thank you !

He also mentioned he only has 7 of these imperfect exhaust systems left. Not to sound like an infomercial but if you want one of these... ACT NOW

My exhaust was shipped yesterday and FedEx estimates tomorrow delivery. I plan to install fri so should have pics and sound clips fri evening.

RandallNeighbour · 10-05-2011, 08:16 AM

Autobot, I would love to know if you concur with my thoughts after you get it installed and you drive around with it on the car with the top up and down and windows up and down when the top is up.

Be sure to putz around in 2nd gear @ 2500 rpm so you can see what I'm talking about.

Steve Tinker · 10-05-2011, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RandallNeighbour

Steve, would the lack of heat dissapation hurt anything?

I cannot imagine so.
My experience is that the (normal) heat soak out of the steel actually goes out of the tail pipe - this is the main reason we use ceramic coating or wrap on motorcycle exhausts as it helps with under fairing temps.
I was just imagining that quite a lot of this unwanted noise is eminating through the steel wall of each chamber & wrappng it may reduce the drone.
It wouldn't be an expensive experiment......

RandallNeighbour · 10-05-2011, 08:47 AM

The reason I asked is that when you wrap headers on our cars, the additional heat moving downstream usually burns out the car's cats in short order. However, the muffler being the last in line wouldn't do much more than put out more heat through the pipes. Then the only concern would be overly hot pipes melting the plastic bumper cover.

None of this may be a genuine concern, but talking about it prevents me from having a car with a lower resonating muffler that melts my bumper cover or worse, sets it on fire!

I should give it a try though. Might be a very cheap fix to a very annoying problem and I can always keep a good eye on the plastic to see if it's getting too hot.

I will post any thoughts I have about it after I do it.

DFW02S · 10-05-2011, 12:41 PM

I just picked up on the the mufflers from John and George at Top Speed and here's what the discrepancy looks like before putting it on the car:

That's a stack of 6 business cards under the right tip.
Here's a measurement at 1/8th to 3/16ths difference, sorry that I couldn't level the tape:

The welds look pretty good too:

When I mount it on the car, if someone is close enough to notice that 3/16th's difference, I'll just wave them past because they're too close to me.
The appearance is completely insignificant, I can't wait to hear it wail at the track this weekend!

DenverSteve · 10-05-2011, 04:31 PM

I'm interested in the tone and volume when you get these going. Are they the "racing" muffers that are advertised cheap? Since I never putz around at 2500 rpms, it's unlikely I would experience the drone. I rarely drive below 3,000 rpm.