Hmmmm... the Cobras I have met have been very loud!

 

Not stock they're not. I've owned 4-5 Cobras from 96-04 and the stock exhaust note from them is just beautiful. Too many people put aftermarket systems on them and they sound crappy and loud. The stock system gives a nice, deep, mellow tone that you can hear but not feel if that makes sense. The minute you change the mufflers on a Cobra (only 2 in the system unlike the 4 in our Jags) you can suddenly "feel" the exhaust and its just obnoxious. Fun for a few minutes as I've modified my fair share, but gets old quick.

 

I embark on a 26 hour journey home in a few hours so will hopefully be installing mine on Sunday. I’m looking forward to hear how you feel after a drive, @87LC2 !

I do wonder how easily the existing pipes will come off but at least there’s going to be no trouble with the hangers after I replaced the rear bumper a couple of months ago - thank goodness for copalslip…

 

I should be able to get the car out this evening, I'll be sure to report back.

The hangers came off really easy, it was the pipe slip joints that took some work to remove without damaging anthing. The clamp nut came off very easy, then I opened up the clamp as much as possilbe (they are tack welded to the muffler pipe so you can't remove them completeley), and then just wiggled, twisted, and pulled until it came loose. One side was off in 2-3 minutes, the other I was about to cut and luckily it came loose on my last attempt Make sure as you wiggle you are pulling right near the pipe joint, need to pull & wiggle at the same time. I ended up jacking the car up and taking the rear wheels off. Not 100% necessary, but made it a bit easier to work in there and yank as hard as I could.

 

Great advice, thanks! I’ll let you know how it goes.

 

So these pipes require no welding, or are you just doing a slip fit?

 

No welding, they just slip on and clamp like the original rear mufflers.

 

Was only able to get the car out for a short drive this morning and let's just say I'm not impressed...will most likely be putting the stock mufflers back on. At idle there is a nice tone and accelerating just off idle it sounds OK, but 2000 rpm is just awful. After that you don't even hear it so pretty pointless. I didn't get on the highway to stay at constant rpm for too long, but there is definitely resonance at 2000 rpm and it sounds more like an electric motor than an exhaust system. Hard to explain, just doesn't sound good. Definitely not as nice as a stock Mustang, I was way off on that one Maybe at idle, but anything after that no thanks. I'll most likely go back to stock and possibly mess with the mufflers before the rear axle at some point if I can find a used system, don't want to cut mine up.

 

Yes sir, My experience with these exhaust systems is that stock is almost always superior.
The days of glass packs on my SS396 Chevelle are long gone.

 

Yea, you're right Randy. I do like a little noise and if they sounded better I'd be OK with it, but they just don't sounds good. I'll probably drive the car a bit with them on until I can swap them out again, but I highly doubt they'll grow on me.

 

That’s disappointing, I have to say. I’m going to go ahead and put them on mine anyway. I’ve always felt it sounds electric with the standard mufflers and the replacements may sound different on a 3.2. Maybe an x-pipe makes all the difference….

One of the current mufflers has started blowing anyway so it should sound better than that.

 

Yea, I was really expecting more. Hopefully you like them and maybe they will be better on the 3.2? That would be great. What you described about the stock exhaust is why I wanted to make a change, the car sounds like absolutely nothing. It's almost odd how quiet the car is stock. I get that it was a luxury car, but if you put a 4.0L Supercharged V8 under the hood it should have some presence, no? I mean then new F-Type Rs sound pretty mean, somewhere in betwen nothing and that would have been nice Going to leave them on for a bit as I don't really feel like getting back under there right away, maybe I'll get used to it. They do look fantastic under there.

 

my car has the front resonators deleted and I think it may meet your needs. Its still perfectly quiet on the highway, but a tiny bit more noise under accel.

 

So all 4 rear mufflers still in place, just the front box gone? Replaced with X/H Pipe or straight pipes?

 

Now. THAT could work! I can understand Jaguar's ambition to keep the car oriented toward the luxury side.
I also understand the driver that wants his more muscular feline to exhibit some strength of sound to compliment
his more aggressive level of performance. Perhaps this is the ticket to that show.

 

I installed the pipes yesterday along with some new tips (the standard tips for the non-supercharged cars are too small and look a bit puny). After cutting through the clamps (it was impossible to release them) and with the help of much grunting and cursing, I managed to get the old pipes off with minimal damage and they are reusable. I did the first one on my own and it took ages but with the help of a second pair of hands from a pal who arrived at just the right time, the second one came off in a few minutes. Jacking the car up, removing the wheels and dropping the rear hanger were all essential parts of the job. Thanks for the tips, @87LC2 !

The new pipes and tips slipped straight on and, after a bit of trial and error, really look good and fill the cut-outs in the rear bumper so much better than the original set. I can see the car from my desk as I type this and it's made a real difference to the rear three-quarter view. Then with @87LC2 's comments on my mind, I started her up.

At start-up and idle, it's really what I wanted. A quiet but distinct burble - very civilised but hints of performance - although that's a bit of a lie for the 3.2 model

The car used to have a bit of resonance at 1,500 rpm. That's gone but it's moved up the rev range to 2,000 rpm when it's under load. It's a little unpleasant with the windows open but, strangely, hardly present with them closed - I can't understand that. Under partial or steady throttle, it's hardly noticeable and smooths out very quickly. Over 3,000 rpm under acceleration, there's more engine noise and the exhaust noise is left behind - inside I've never liked that noisy sewing machine sound. From inside the car, I can't detect any difference but my pal travelling close behind with the roof down on his Fiat 124 Abarth said it sounded great right up to when I changed up at 6,500 rpm.

We've got a long trip to the Jaguar Summer Festival this weekend so I'll suspend judgement 'til we've spent three hours or so in the car. For the moment, I think I'm happy with what I've achieved. I won't go looking for other options and will just slip the stock silencers back on if it doesn't work out. It's actually brought me to a much more expensive decision - I need an XJR. The right noise, backed up by the reality of great performance...

 

Glad you got them on @markdpeter and like them so far. That is very interesting about not hearing it with the windows closed. I haven't driven with the windows up yet, but will be interesting to see if the little annoyance goes away with the windows up. I haven't had the car out again (busy weekend), but will drive it a bit more this week to form a more complete opinion. It does sound a lot better at idle as you said, just what I was looking for. It's just the bit of drone/resonace just before 2k rpm that was putting me off.

 

I did a 250 mile round trip - a mix of motorways, towns and lovely sweeping roads on the Welsh/English border. The Simply Performance pipes are coming off this weekend. The resonance at 2,000rpm turns out to be much worse than I first thought and it kills the pleasure of the drive. I'll go back to the standard pipes and just replace the puny standard tips with something that fills the cut-outs better.

On a positive note, the weather was lovely and fuel prices have come down a bit so I managed to fill my tank for the first time in a few weeks - up until today, the credit card payment limit on the Costco fuel pumps has been hit before the tank was full!

 

Sorry to hear about the exhaust, but nice to hear about the trip! I still haven't had mine out of the garage since the first drive, but guessing I'll be taking mine off as well. Gonig to look into deleting the front resonator or might just leave it alone.

 

I wish I'd read the earlier posts in more detail and seen that you were asking about deleting the rear mufflers, I'd have chimed in with the same results that others have said. You get basically the same effect to test out by just removing the rear muffler sections and going for a drive around with the mid-muffler pipes dumping into the wheel wells, a tiny bit more grunt but a REALLY bad resonance at 2k rpm. Obviously don't do this for extended periods since it'll dump onto your tires and heat em up, also exhaust fumes probably aren't great for rubber longevity. I think I've heard elsewhere that X-pipe in the shared muffler, and possibly deleting the mid mufflers if you really want noise, but keeping the rear mufflers in place is a good move.

I've been considering trying out supersprint X-pipe 131012, I have a spare shared muffler section where the muffler is bad. It seems like you can just cut out the muffler and slip that X-pipe in place, but I haven't been able to get a clear answer from Supersprint on if it requires additional parts or mods, the X-pipe looks a bit shorter than the OEM muffler... That and there's other places I need to put money towards on the XJR, such as buying another set of tires which hopefully don't cause highway vibration, really hoping that it's just bum tires there and not something weird frame related.