Bowyer

My 2002 I bought came to me with a muffler-delete. The sound is great, not too loud or obnoxious, but lately is seems I am wanting a quieter experience. Even cruising at 70-ish, the is still some cabin noise from the exhaust. Anyone have experience with the factory muffler vs. the muffler delete? How quiet and tame is the factory muffler? PS...I have an E430 and a 2002 CLK430. Both are very quiet when compared to my E55 with no muffler....the silence is nice in the Benz. Just wondering if I might regret the change. (yes, I know I can change it back relatively cheap)

PJmak

On the highway you wont hear anything. The noise comes through a bit at higher rpms but its quiet.

And this is my c43 with a 5.4 swap and resonator delete. The e class probably has a more sound proof cabin.

It might be too quiet for you.

Bowyer

PJmak, I think having a quieter sound will be a nice change, and I'll definitely miss it at times, but for my DD, I'm kind of looking forward to it.

BTW, you 55-swap to C class has to be a beast! What year is it? My daughter drives a 1997 C230...might need to put a 5.4 in it...haha!! I'd love to see some pics and/or videos if you have some.

v8sonly

Even without the resonator, the factory muffler is extremely quiet. I opened up the muffler on the top side, removed half the packing material and welded it back up...big difference and just enough sound in the cabin now. My car came with a resonator delete and tiny Magnaflow dual in/out in place of the OEM muffler. It sounded good, but droned something awful. The factory muffler has no drone either way. I recently added Kleemann headers and high flow cats, and it's still very manageable. My wife is not a 'car person' and it's very acceptable to her, but when you wind the car out it'll certainly make people jealous.

Bowyer

I am still debating on making the change back to the factory muffler. I'll do it it at some point, but right now I need new rear tires. That's next on my list.

Bowyer

So I put the factory muffler back on today...and there is zero 'exhaust note.' With the muffler delete, you knew the car had a V-8 and it really sounded great when accelerating...made it less of a sleeper for the casual observer. The 'new' setup is almost too quiet, I find myself winding out the engine just to hear it, and breaking speed limits :-) . It's not much louder than my E430 or CLK430. Very quiet. But for my daily driver, the new setup will be fine, especially as I travel 400 miles this weekend.. PS...I left the resonator in place.