Randall: your muffler? - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

RandallNeighbour · 04-15-2006, 07:01 PM

I got the muffler last week from a very nice forum member... $25!

Bought a long-nosed electric die grinder on ebay and it came in this week.

Bought some grinding wheels at Home Depot last night. I'm gonna try and work on it tomorrow or Monday night.

I will return to this thread with pix as I do it and let you know what happened.

First thought: Our factory mufflers are HEAVY. Dang. I had no idea.

RandallNeighbour · 04-22-2006, 08:53 AM

OK, I'm in the middle of this project and man, that steel is thick!

The Morse abrasive cutting wheels I bought from Ace Hardware at 2 bucks each wear down to nothing in a flat 1-2 minute span. I am just barely making a groove inside that muffler thus far.

Finding small enough grinding wheels to fit inside the muffler pipe is not easy. Tons of big ones are available...and cheap.

I'm gonna find more of the small 1.5 inch x 1/4 inch ones and keep working at it. I'll keep you posted.

Rail26 · 04-22-2006, 03:55 PM

That's good to know seing as our mufflers are about 4 large! I can't believe they are so expensive.

RandallNeighbour · 04-22-2006, 07:36 PM

ok, it's installed!

I grinded and grinded and grinded some more... and then took it over to Hans, who not-so-promptly hammered away at my original exhaust to get it off and put the modified one on. Took about an hour and a half, and he's done it a bunch of times. It would have easily taken me 5 hours considering I had no idea how to do it.

Sounds about 20% louder and has a nice exhaust note. I do wish I had worked harder to put larger holes in it though... now that I have a taste I want more!

Muffler hacks = new chemical dependency problem. I just might have to take it off and do some more hole grinding to get just a little more grunt sound out of it. I'm happy for the time being though.

I recommend this for anyone who has an older boxster, little to no cash, and sense of adventure. I did not experience any power loss from the butt dyno.

Dang, I just remembered I was supposed to take pictures. I forgot. Sorry folks.

Jeph · 04-23-2006, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RandallNeighbour

Dang, I just remembered I was supposed to take pictures. I forgot. Sorry folks.

Redemption is only an audio clip away...

986Jim · 04-24-2006, 06:09 AM

OK, so what exactly is it that you did anyway? I thought you were going to have the pipes welded from the inlet before the muffler to the tip like the ones on ebay from germany. Its seems from your post that you only drilled holes in the muffler or something?

RandallNeighbour · 04-24-2006, 07:05 AM

I discovered bypass pipes could earn me a trip to the muffler shop once a year to put the factory one back on to pass inspection. Soooo, I decided to just drill a hole inside a factory muffler to see if it made for better sound and it did.

I used a long-nose, electric die grinder and some 1.5 x 1/4 inch grinding wheels I purchased from Ace Hardware (Home Depot and Lowe's don't carry them, so don't go there to look as I've already done it!)

This way, you get the benefits of a bypass but not the visual pipes themselves and it's far harder to nail you for a mod they can't see. Moreover, it's not really loud enough at idle for them to figure out either.

But I can now hear the exhaust with the stereo up and the top down. It's still fairly quiet with the top up, which is good because on long trips I don't want to hear an engine drone on for hours and hours.

Since I have the grinder, and extra wheel and my old factory muffler, I think I'll "re-enact" the process for photos and post it on my website. I'll put a link to it here when I get it done. I'm out of town on business this weekend, but I might be able to get around to it after that.