Yosheego

Okay I did my X pipe mod today...





I didn't get to take the picture after because he lowered the car before i had the chance too, so this is the best i have here...



After the mod it wasn't much deeper or throaty as i expected. It still almost sounds factory. Most x pipe mode i've heard/seen online has the throaty and has deeper sound. Any ideas?

Should i have straight piped the 2ndary Cat?

Here is a clip of it.. (click below)



Another clip with a morning cold startup up (click below) Not as explosive on the startup as i thought it would be.

fromthebeginnin

What are the performance characteristics, did you notice any gains?

Yosheego

Hmm...I don't know if it's me but maybe i lost a tiny bit of torque?...but then again it could be just me. And also, it hear more of the hissing sound when i do WOT.

park423

Sounds good on startup but idle sounds stock, can hear the throatiness when your gassing it.

Yosheego

Yeh, your right, after listening to it over and over again. it does sound pretty good now

park423

How much did it cost? Thought about doing this myself...

K-A

That makes sense, as releasing backpressure on a non-boosted car can (and usually will) hurt low end, but you should gain some breathing up top, in theory. Also, MPG's can be affected, my experience is a loss of MPG with open-exhaust/loss of backpressure, but they say that in theory it should actually get better MPG.

I know what you mean by being letdown. Nothing more underwhelming than doing an exhaust mod and having it come out muted (or even worse, not good sounding). But I think, in the long run, it's good for an E-Class. it maintains the smooth quietness if you want, but you can hear a little bit of juice when you want.

petee1997

And you should also put those tomato can tips. That would also sharpen it up.

Racing Dad

i think it sounds great. my e63 sounds about the same. U get the same sound with 2less cylinders and 700cc less displacement. :-)

next step is drill holes in the exhaust, that'll give a deeper sound. ;-P JK (don't do that,just a joke).

Yosheego

@ Racing Dad

I'm debating now whether i should run a straight pipe in place of the 2ndary cat. Just afraid it might drone at cruising speed.

Yosheego

$260 (i'm living in a smaller town, so i guess it's more money.)

Tai230K

I'm thinking about doing to same modification on my car. Do you think it still sounds a bit muted?

shellx

Still very muted. Even with the resonators (what look like secondary cats but are not) chopped mine sounds very muted. I'd recommend an exhaust muffler change to be noticeable.

Cifdig

I was working in a w212 last week at my shop and had to change the exhaust so I figured before I went ahead and deleted the secondary cats I'd see what they look like on the one I was fixing, well every one calls them secondary cats but there hollow straight threw just small holes in them, like a small resonator. I was under the impression that had they same inside platinum honeycones like a cat. Anyway I can't see anyone losing power at all by deleting straight threw sound restrictors. Just wanted to share what I saw when doing one.

shellx

Exactly! The "secondary cats" really are just resonators. They look like cats, but once they cut them off my car, they're hollow with the small holes like the resonator. That is why the w212 doesn't benefit from the same resonator mod as the w211 where the secondary cats are true cats. If you want sound, get a catback or modify your mufflers. The resonator mod doesn't really make that big a difference imho.

ghh429

Are you sure the "resonators" isn't an X-pipe system already? If not then MB has tuned the car to not need an X-pipe and you could be hurting performance. An X-pipe is used to promote exhaust gas scavenging on both cylinder banks. Typically X-pipes are employed for longer stroke engine designs where the exhaust pulse sequences are farther apart. Sorry but I would say there's a 50/50 chance you are actually hurting performance with your X-pipe. Believe it or not it takes sometime and engineering to design an exhaust system and most "exhaust shops" simply are not up to the task... Anyone know what the E550 and the E350 exhaust similarities are? Maybe i'll spend sometime looking at W212 exhaust design if there's enough interest...

shellx

The resonators that look like secondary cats are not an X-pipe. They don't intersect at all. I'll go take a photo and post it up.

shellx

Here you go:



And the inside:

hyperion667

wow, that second pic reminds me of Empire Strikes back, haha

ghh429

Nice! Interesting cheapie design & construction. Definitely room for improvement!

Personally I would stay away from an X-pipe unless you can prove power gains. Typically for this type of exhaust we would 3D scan it first, perform basic flow modeling, then make 3-4 prototypes verifying each theory through dyno and AFR testing. I wouldn't expect to see much gains maybe 15whp when you trade off some sound for exhaust flow... My suggestion is to get a dyno delta to see where you really are at with this Xpipe.

Cifdig

Yea like I said there straight threw so deleting them would not make the car lose power at all or gain power at all, just sound. So it would be better to just delete the resonators and put straight pipes in place of them no x pipe just straight, if sound is what your looking for.

AD500

i did the same mod + i have E63 rear mufflers (full E63 exterior)

here is a little acceleration from inside the car if you want to compare the sounds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od-nO...yer_detailpage

ImInPA

Now you just have to figure out how to mount a playing card with a clothespin on the spokes of your wheels. It will sound really fast then. Vroooom Vrooooom. lol

Seriously, there are a lot of myths surrounding the advantage of back pressure, but, it is unlikely you have made much if any difference in torque with the x-pipe mod.

chrisdabeast7

Hey guys i have a 2012 e550 coupe and i want to do an x pipe too in place of a resonator. For those who done it with their e550 what brands did you go for and what inlet/outlet size did you get (2.25, 2.5, or 3 inches) ?

leapingpoint

man, V8 is V8. sounds pretty good to me!
i can only get a 1.8T version of E here. and even tho i replaced my exhaust to a set of Sebring quad exhaust, still doesn't sound as good as yours....