My silencer/muffler has had a hole in it for about 6 months now - gradually getting worse and unrepairable.
A few weeks ago, after fishing round on the various forums I ordered an M&K 1in/1out muffler. I'd read good stuff about them - excellent sound, very well made, bit more performance, and the guy making them appears to be helpful. What swung it for me was that is't also quite a lot lighter than the stock muffler.
I initially ordered it off pelican. They charged more for postage than the other site listed on M&K's own site (http://www.mkexhaust.com/) but the ordering process was good. A week later and Pelican said firstly the post was going up by another $100 and they wanted additional verification to process my order. I cancelled and went to the other supplier. It still took a long time to come - about 3 weeks in all, but it arrived last Friday.
Conveniently it came whilst the car was in zentrum havingt he troublesome oil pipe replaced (this pipe may have been the cause of all my engine trouble...)
Zentrum said if I got the muffler to them they'd fit it.
I got a call Friday afternoon from Mike at Zentrum saying they'd fitted the exhaust and the good news was it sounded awsome. the bad news was that the bumper wouldn't fit over it and they'd have to cut it.
The previous (OE) muffler was at an angle which showed up once the backdating was done and this new one was also at an angle:-
My first thought was to straighten it up by applying upwards pressure on the left hand side pipe. I did a bit of this which helped to make it more level but this in turn brought about more problems. My moving it up it meant the muffler fouled the bumper even more.
I left it with Mike on Friday evening and basically told him to cut it until it fitted. He phoned me at 8pm Friday evening to say he'd got it on and it didn't look loo bad. I was grateful for the extra hours he put in, as he was due to go on holiday the next morning.
I picked up the car on the Saturday morning. It looked OK, but not brill (nothing to do with Mike but all to do with me backdating i suppose).
I drove it around and after a while smelled a familiar fibreglass burning smell. I checked it out and it has started to discolour the bumper and turn it black. When I looked close part of the bumper had split ( a small part) and part of it was resting on the muffler itself.
Last night I did some further emergency surgery, and cut out everything that was touching the muffler. I didn't have time to take the bumper off the car so the cut could have been tidier.
I can't make my mind up about the muffler in terms of looks - it's not level and it's not neat. It's also not that bad. As a bare minimum I'm going to take the bumper off and straighten up that cut between the overriders so that it is a straight line. I will also tidy up the bit where I did my drastic surgery. Finally I'll clean up the muffler where it's got fibreglass burn marks on it
I'm contemplating taking it to a custome exhaust manufacturer (any ideas?) and getting them to make a new middle-pipe (or whatever it's called) but bent and shaped so it would put the muffler behind the rear bumper, so only the pipe could be seen. Would there be issues on tuning the length of the exhaust pipe in relation to that?
Alternatively I've thought of just getting a life and not stressing about it. It looks a bit 'outlaw' I suppose which I like, and even though it's not level it don't look too bad. I'd welcome opinions either way.
Turning to the exhaust itself, it's effin brill. At tickover there is a more meaningful burble than before, but not ridiculous. the car is my daily drive so I was keen it wouldn't be wearing on me. When driving along on a light throttle - say under 3K revs, I really don't notice it's there. If I lift off there is more of a bassy boom than was there before which I don't really like but again it's not really too bad.
When you put your foot down though, it really comes into it's own - there's firstly a lovely racy harsh sound that starts to come into it, underlaid with that ferocious burble - very animalistic - a definite snarl. I've also noticed a definite improvement in performance, although not consistently - I would say I get more poke lower down the rev range, but no change above 5K revs.
It sounds awsome!
Here's some pics
Bumper pre-surgery
'Normal' view from the rear:-
Close-up at the side showing problem if I just try and raise the muffler:-
Close-up at the rear showing latest hatchet-surgery (to be tidied up)
Cheers
Mark
