AKnight55

Ok.. i want to make the beast a little louder.. yea yea, I know the search button. straight pipes in place of the resonator sounds like the thing to do.. but do i do something about the secondary cat.. help me out..

Thanks guys

AMG_RL

have the shop remove the secondary cats along with the resonator and replace them with 3" straight pipes. gives it a really nice growl at WOT

27300man

I heard you will have power loss doing this? Will the car pass a smog check after this is done????

pearlpower

Heard another members car that had that done, very little difference in sound.

AWOL

I was at the shop today to see if they could do this. They looked under it and the exhaust pipe is oval right before the cats so they were going to cut upstream further and weld on stainless pipe for the cats.

But it looked too extensive for an unknown "power" mod, so i said no thanks.

anybody have pics of theirs done so I can see?

E55AMGGG04

When I had a stock exhaust I met up with a member here and he has secondary cats removed and resonator removed. His car sounded much better then mine. It had that growl that your talking about.

Resonator delete has been said to make the car lose a few ponies but removing the cats has been said to gain a little. Either way your not gonna feel it and they should even themselves out.

I have meisterschaft mufflers with secondary cats removed and my car sound LOUDDDDD for sure. GOOD LUCK.

zefpashko

I had a local performance shop do this modification. At idle, I hear no difference. At higher revs, there is a bit more growl but it's subtle to my ears. For any real sound difference, I think aftermarket mufflers or gutting the stock mufflers are the way to go.

In the mid-atlantic, I've looked around for shops that have done "muffler gutting" but no luck yet. Most shops around here either won't do it or can do it but for $$$$ (>$500). Haven't pulled the trigger on aftermarket mufflers yet!

AWOL

may i ask how much that cost? it looks simple enough

zefpashko

Including costs of 3" x-pipe (magnaflow) and 3" stainless tubing and labor ($115/hr) it was around $600-700. The bends were all done at a shop that does mandrel bending inhouse... not that common around here. I bet you could fine cheaper if you shopped around.

cal1

So here are a couple of links. I know it's an SL, but we share the same motor and similar exhaust. My secondaries are deleted and I do have headers. Otherwise stock exhaust. This notion of less back pressure equals lost power does not apply to blown engines like ours IMHO. The clip does not do the extra sound at WOT justice. Friends tell me " it's F-ing loud at WOT. Not much difference under light throttle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi5oI-qNApM&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd3Tf...eature=related

pearlpower

Headers do make a difference, not what the OP was asking for. Does sound good though.

cal1

Maybe so, but I did not notice any difference after the header install. The extra sound came when the secondary kitties came off. Could be the headers helped though.

bigswin

i had my resonators and sec cats taken out. I didn't notice any loss of power whatsoever and i did most definitely sound better especially at WOT.

lotuskid

Here's an HD video of my car with Secondary cats and resonator removed. I also have an X-Pipe in place of the resonator. Not much difference under Idle and standstill revving but under load it is throatier.

http://vimeo.com/9636387