First off, sorry for posting a noobish thread! lol

I need comments, suggestions, and criticism on an idea I hatched last night. Here goes:

For a while now I have wanted to upgrade to a beefier exhaust, something with a meaner tone at idle and at WOT, with of course a little added performance. My main problem is that, for other more practical reasons, I don't want to lose the relative silence of the stock exhaust. Can't have both though right?

Here is my plan:

Stock exhaust leading up to an electric cutout, leading to a custom dual exhaust setup. One pipe being 2.5" diameter with a <insert performance brand> muffler at the end. Another being 2.25" like stock, leading to a muffler that looks exactly like the other but is as quiet as stock.



and here are my reasons for going about it this way:

1.) Aesthetics. I like the look of dual exhaust on the balt. I realize I could just slap the cutout on my current stock exhaust and be done with it.

2.) Performance. I understand that "true" dual exhaust setups are simply not possible on a 4 cyl engine. For this reason, only one of my exhaust ports will be used at any given time. One will be the stock 2.25" from the axle back, and the other a 2.5" with a performance oriented muffler. I don't plan on going any further than GM Stage 3 so I don't think I'll need a diameter larger than 2.5" for the "performance" pipe.

3.) Sound. Simply put, I want a louder, deeper exhaust tone, but want to be able to switch back to my old stock sound at the flick of a switch.

I realize it might sound silly to only use one pipe at a time, but the value of selecting the sound I want, as well as having the look I want just seems perfect to me.

Does this seem feasable? Did I get the size of the stock pipe right? Is this a stupid idea?

I want to know what you guys think!

Thanks!

 

Sounds really cool to me. And nice car by the way. Exactly what i plan on trading up to this summer!

 

Good luck. U can do anything if u put ur mind to it. I hope u plan on splitting the exhaust after the rear axle, because there is no room to do it b4.

later

 

pretty good idea. do it. then post vids.

 

I love dual exhausts, & it will look great, but I don't know about anything else.

 

I would have to look but their may be some issues because of where the gas tank sits on the balt

 

switch the cut out to the other side and do 2.5 on both sides a bottleneck will hurt u rather than help! good luck!
i just did a cut out off where the resinator used to be

 

sounds like an interesting task, but you definitely won't have room to fit the stock muffler in the right side of the car, the right side is definitely a tighter area. If you were to do the cutout i would put the performance magnaflow on the right, but i'm sure you'll measure and find out what fits. I like the idea of a quiet switch, and its smart to keep the cutout into a higher flowing exhaust cause i don't think our cars benefit from true exhaust dump cutout (which are loud and obnoxious anyways), goodluck.

 

^^^^^^^^^ what he said, and there wont be any room for that piping you plan on running on the pass side, i mean you could put it there but it will hang down and be obvious/hidious looking, but besides that you have a great idea just need to go back to the drawing board on the layout...... my suggestion is run the same piping till you get to the rear axle then split and put cut out back there! wait looking at it again thats what your trying to do huh? the long sections threw me off... umm yeah looks great... please try and let everyone know how it turns out....

 

i don't get why you would use a cutout...why not just run dual all the time? You won't be losing back pressure at all since you have 2.5' piping running to the cutout.

 

I run a cutout dump. But I'm tuned with it. My A/F is a flat 12:1 all the way up and my tq curve is pure sex. With the cutout closed, I'm on stock exhaust and a tad on the rich side. Definitely slower than when it's open.

 

Thanks for all the feedback!

The pipes in the diagram are from a generic pic I found in the gallery. Their lengths aren't true to how it would actually look.

I'll use jester's sig as an example of where the cutout would be located:



As far as using the stock muffler, I definitely wont be using it (contrary to what I wrote in the diagram). I'll be going with something from the same brand as the performance muffler that looks the same but has different, quieter internals. I'm not even entirely sure they make em that way.

The intent isnt to have dual all the time. It's to have the choice of running a louder, freer flowing exhaust OR the stock exhaust depending what I feel like running that day. If after I finish the project I feel like "wow. this was a waste of time." then I will have learned the hard way, but had fun doing it. lol

Anyway this project shouldn't cost much to bring about, so I'll be sure to post back when its done. Hopefully not before too long.

 

sounds good... but think of how stupid it will look when it gets cold.... it will only come out of 1 pipe.

 

Good call on that one, but where I live it gets cold about 2 weeks out of the year. No joke!

 

forget what I originally posted... it was really dumb haha, i just realized that!

but ya man, sweet plan, gl