So I was speaking with my dad about messing with the exhaust. He had a suggestion that he has used a few times. Buy a used cat then take an iron rod and bust the honeycomb out. Make it like a resonator. That way it looks OE, but is slightly louder Apparently the cops here like to bust tuners. So has anyone seen this or done this?

 

If anyone is interest on how this would sound or function, and has a cat lying around. Send it my way and I will make a video. If you don't mind me keeping it.

 

Well, my cats (kleeman) are gutting themselves..... Inner material pieces are occasionally coming out the tail pipe. Everything after the cats (resonators, x-pipe, muffler) uses straight through tubing.

I imagine with baffled components this could be a real drag on performance. I don't know how much material is left in the cats but I will replace them later this summer or in the fall.

Although I like the sound of the exhaust, if it is a bit less loud with good cats, it is ok with me.

 

Yep, that's a great trick for state that do emission checks without a sniffer and do just an OBDII scan and visual inspection (the OBDII scan is easy to "fake" with an appropriate tune that ignores the rear O2 sensors).

As for the cops around here, they could not care less about exhaust noise and improper aftermarket HID on the kid's ricers, but let me actually ride with the top down on the CLK and take of in 1st gear with just the hint of exhaust noise and I get pulled over every time.

 

Gut the muffler, you'll get much more meaner sound

 

Thanks you guys are really helpful. Yeah if I do anything I will buy a used part just to have a back up just in case. Real quick though. ESP Unavailible See operators manual is no big deal right it went away after having the car on for a minute.

 

It could be a fault in the ESP control module, or a problem with the steering angle sensor. Did you disconnect the battery? That can require recalibrating the steering angle sensor by doing tow or three full lock-to-lock turns.

 

It went away but when I get off for lunch I will do the lock to lock recal.