the horror....
 

it finally rained here last evening and i drove home with the top up for 20 minutes or so, and that is about the extent i could stand with the dreaded drone!

if this was my daily driver or even occassional road trip car, there is no way i could stand it.....and no way the stereo could drown the drone. earplugs would definitely help.

i will be keeping the stock 986s muffler around (with holes drilled) in case i ever decide to drive somewhere in this thing.

fwiw, i'm sporting the ebay kcr headers and exhaust discussed at length elsewhere on the forum.

yes, there is a significant performance difference with them mounted.

yes, the exhaust note is much improved and with the top down, fabulous!

yes, the drone is completely unacceptable with top up for this guy.

Yup there is always a trade-off , you just can't have it both ways. The trick is to find out which is more important to YOU (you most likely allready know that) I felt similarly when I first installed my Borla but got so used to it I never took it off.

That's why I would never do anything to change the wonderful driving experience the Boxster is. "Drill out the muffler"? No way.

muffler drill out (two 5/8" holes in tail) didn't add any drone, just a bit of 'burble' and exhaust noise. a definite improvement to my ears.

i kept waiting for the punch line "so i dropped her off at her mother's house and drove home in silence"... i think the board has jaded me. :rolleyes:

nice, Tony! i wish it were that easy......

drove to my first NASCAR event Sunday. top down on the way there with earplugs in and it wasn't all that bad. really love that it sounds like a sportscar now.

it was 90+++ degrees later in the day so top up on the way home. conversation with my companion was challenging at best....too bad i sorta wanted to hear what she had to say at times!

Matty, thanks for the fair-minded and honest eval. A lot of people never want to admit that there are tradeoffs involved in many of the mods that are posted here. Best to let folks know the good, the bad, and the ugly so they can make up their own minds which path to follow and not be surprised at the result.

Cheers, mate! :cheers:

I gave up on all the aftermarket exhausts. Granted mine i a 99 and you can't squeeze much more out of it but I wanted a slightly better tone. After just swapping to an 'S' muffler it had the sound I was after. The ONLY one I miss is the PSE as it had the best sound overall...I just didn't acre for the looks very much.
Chris