Thinking about removing one or both of the muffler resonators.

Hey everyone, I recently had to repair one of the hangers in my muffler and I started thinking about upgrading my exhaust. Originally I just wanted to do the mufflers and then I was told that if I want to get the desired sound that I need it would probably be a good idea to remove one or both of my resonators and see if I like that first. Otherwise, with something like a Flowmaster or a Magnaflow it may not get enough back pressure to get the sound that I’m looking for.

Before I go this route I want to know if anyone here has done this and if there was any negative effects such as decreased horsepower or a check engine light. I’ve heard of instances with other cars where the ECU goes into some sort of a limp mode because the car thinks there’s an engine issue.

I do realize this is an inexpensive way to get what I’m looking for and I don’t know if I’m ready to drop a lot of money to go cat back on the whole system just yet.

 

demiroquia, part of what you need to consider from what I have read (as I am looking at the same thing) is that most talk about the volume going up (not substantially unless you pull both) and the exhaust note gets a bit more raspy/poppy. The raspy/poppy sound is not necessarily what I am after. Also keep in mind that depending on which resonator you pull, this can have an effect on what it does to the engine. What I mean by this is that if you remove the front resonator and replace it just with straight pipe (more in this in a moment), you can actually gain some low end grunt since you can think of the exhaust as a musical instrument and the longer tube is going to make a lower note. This may be beneficial based on what you are wanting out of the car. Granted, the downside to this is you are not going to see as much high RPM gain (again, may or may not be what you are after). The vice versa can be said about removing the rear one. You are going to keep the pipes short up front, leading to higher RPM performance.

I know there has been a lot of talk about people that have removed the resonators (not sure if it was one or both), but they talked about having a drone in the car at highway speeds. Keep in mind also the the muffler you pick is going to have a lot of effect on what you end up with. A 40 series muffler is going to be great for power, but will have a lot of volume (especially if you delete both resonators). This may be too much. Likewise, a 70 series muffler is going to be just above factory and the gains that you see are going to be minimal (worth the cost?). With this being said, I am likely to go with a 70 series muffler myself as I don't necessarily want lots of volume, but figure with removing the front resonator and going with the dual 70 series mufflers, I will get a bit more volume and a potentially gain of about 20 hp. My main thing is to get a nice boost in the lower RPM range. I have a similar setup in my truck (yes, I know, different monster, but the concepts are similar) and the low end gains were nice. The other hope is because I am focusing on the lower RPM gains, I can possibly get a bit better mileage too.

The other thing that you need to ponder is what tips you are looking at. Remember the musical instrument reference, this is another place where this is true. But, now, think about the bell of a trumpet compared to that of a tuba. The problem comes, you need lots of room for the tuba bell and well, you just don't have it in this car. This is where getting the lower "growl" is going to be a challenge to get.

Keep in mind, that you should have some sort of crossover pipe (this is part of what the resonators do) to help even out the exhaust flows side to side. Again, where you position this in the exhaust system affects where in the RPM range you will see benefits (musical instrument reference again). Also the angle of the cross over is a factor. The closer to 90 degrees you go, the more gain you will see. Down side being that you will also see it over a more limited range. You get down around 30 degrees, you get a power gain over a larger range of RPM, but it isn't as much. This is from what I call the ejection pump theory. I liken it to you blowing over the end of a pop bottle and it makes the noise. What is happening is as you blow across the opening, you are sucking some air out of the bottle until it reaches a point than a bunch of air goes rushing back in (hence the noise). In the case of the cross over pipe, the closer to 90 degrees you get, the better the suction. But, because the exhaust is pulsing, it pulls some of the air out of the other pipe, helping the engine be able to exhaust on this "vacuumed out side". This leads to better clearing of the cylinder and more power.

Hopefully some others chime in as to what their setups are. I know if you do some looking, there are a few posts. There are also a few videos on the web of people that have upgraded their exhausts.

 

What engine do you have?
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I have the V8 Supercharged.

 

The V8 sounds absolutely wonderful stock and it will bellow like a demon if you want it to with mods. Good luck I was afraid you had the 6 cylinder and they just don't have what I call a pleasing sound no matter what you do.
One thing I did on my old S Type R was to temporarily disconnect the 2 back mufflers and take a test drive. That will give you a quick and cheap way to see if you want more noise or not.
These 5.0L V-8's do sound great to me!
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I removed both of my mufflers and put bottle resonators in place. It's gotten much louder and it pops and crackles really loud too. I also removed the rear resonator and put in a Magnaflow tru x, but that caused really bad droning, so i put the OEM one back on. I've been driving my car like this for 4-5 months with no engine light or issues, in fact, my gas mileage has slightly gotten better lol.

 

Good to know. What brand/model did you buy to replace the mufflers?

 

They’re the Vibrant Performance (1792) Bottle Style Resonators. They’re on amazon for $48 each