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Custom exhaust - sneak peak

8K views 48 replies 21 participants last post by  Jkrumm 
#1 ·
Well, after looking around at some of the cat-back exhausts available for our cars, I decided that it seemed like a fairly simple endeavor. I work at an automotive shop which does exhaust work, so my techs and I decided to see what we could do. At first I started with a simple "lunch box" delete, and replacing the front muffler with a 6" diameter, 18" long Magnaflow. I left all the other tubing the same, and added a Magnaflow tip. I liked the sound, but it was only marginally louder than stock. So I ordered a 10' stick of non-polished stainless steel tubing in 2.5", and we did a full cat-back with resonator delete a la FSWerks. Here are some pics of the work in progress. I'll post a video as soon as it stops raining here and I can get one.

The muffler I chose...


Techs cutting the tubing...


The first set of bends after the muffler...


The bends heading up over the rear suspension...


And coming down into the tip...


The sound is incredible. There is some in-cabin drone at low to mid RPMs, but nothing unbearable. At higher RPMs or when just cruising, it's nice and low, with a deep, throaty sound.
 
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#2 ·
Loudness was your primary criteria for a quality exhaust?
[slap]
 
#3 ·
No, that's not quite what I said. It's just that what we did at first wasn't quite the sound I was looking for. There is nothing close to poor quality in what we built. It's mandrel bent, full stainless steel tubing with a stainless steel Magnaflow muffler and tip, with a lifetime warranty on both. We took a lot of time getting the bends and lines just right so there's no contact between the exhaust and anything else. The only difference being is that this is hand-welded instead of machine welded, but my techs can weld pretty well.
 
#4 ·
I know I'm just giving you crap [neener]
I prefer a quieter exhaust on anything with less than 8 cylinders or 250 hp.
 
#6 ·
I understand where you're coming from asting, but I'm actually very surprised by how the exhaust sounds coming out of the this little 2.0.

And Power Surge, it actually is mandrel bent, it's just a fairly old machine, and it actually had to put forth quite a bit of effort to bend the tubing I got. It was fairly thick tubing, much better than the crap I had put on my '11 Sonata, but we won't even get into how bad that thing sounded.
 
#7 ·
A mandrel machine is over 20ft long and it draws, well, a mandrel through the inside of the pipe as it bends it so you have the full ID of the pipe throughout the bend. Your pipe was bent on a typical crimp style exhaust shop bender. Still works fine, but it's not mandrel bent.
 
#10 ·
I was always under the impression that the the term "die" and "mandrel" were interchangeable when it came to tubing benders, but after seeing Power Surges reply and a little research, I can see now that they are two separate components.

Now for the OT part...
Power Surge, is it true that if the tubing to be bent were filled with sand and then welded closed prior to bending that the ID would be maintained even when drawn over the die? I've always heard that, but never tried it myself.

/OT

BaconZombie, I like what you've done there. Any rough costs as compared to FSWerks?
 
#11 ·
Now for the OT part...
Power Surge, is it true that if the tubing to be bent were filled with sand and then welded closed prior to bending that the ID would be maintained even when drawn over the die? I've always heard that, but never tried it myself.
I highly doubt that would work. Even filled with sand, the pipe will bulge out wherever the tubing is weakest. The sand will still compress anyway, so you'd still wind up with a crimped bend.
 
#12 ·
i like what you did, even without hearing the exhaust.
on the new fofo, the exhaust exit is a terrible one, its like the prius, you can't even see the exhaust tip, i like how you made yours visible, it definitely addes a nice feature to the rear end, as all exhaust outlets do. i like how you made yours visible and looking good.
post a vid of it soon
 
#13 ·
I could not agree more, I absolutely hate the stock tip. I really like your exhaust setup. It looks like a nice performance upgrade and I bet the sound is amazing. I personally love loud exhausts, even on a 4 cylinder. On my 3.0 L V-6 Taurus I ran a straight pipe for years and never got sick of it lol. Definitely got a lot of funny looks though.
 
#16 ·
I wonder how it would sounds with double Magnaflows up front to replace both the mufflers?
 
#18 ·
incredible exhuast, hope you got the sound you were looking for. magnaflow is usually good when it comes to sound but im a little bias too since I own a magnaflow exhaust.great job.
 
#19 ·
TitaniumStick, it cost me right around $200 at my cost. Since I work where I had it done, my mark-up is fairly low. But the overall cost wouldn't be bad. If, say, someone were interested in doing it, we could easily do it for $400 or less.

I will get a video hopefully tomorrow. Thanks for all the compliments. I didn't like the stock exhaust look either, so that's why I took off the rear muffler first.

ResJudicata, the Magnaflow is a straight-through design. I went with a larger diameter, longer length one than usual to make sure drone wasn't too bad and that the exhaust wasn't obnoxiously loud. I didn't want it to sound ricey.

Faygo, the high-temp paint WILL stick to stainless. We covered all my welds with high-temp silver paint so they won't rust, and you can't really tell it's painted.

And by the way, the tip I got is a dual-walled 3", you could change the tip according to your own preference. That's just the look I liked on my Focus.
 
#29 ·
I like it now let's hear it please! I really like the double wall tip too. My magnaflow system came in today and I'm going to scan it with our automatic mandrel bender and make a system from 2.5 aluminized pipe and glasspacks that we manufacture. If everything goes well I'll be selling the magnaflow system for a deep discount to recoup money.
 
#34 · (Edited)
Okay, as promised here are some videos.

First is start-up with some revs. Before anyone asks, yes, the car was warmed up previous to do this, I never hard-rev a card with a cold engine.
Second video is my girlfriend doing a drive-by (she didn't quite understand the concept the first time, so you get a view of what it sounds like while cruising).
Third is a better drive-by.
Sorry for all the background noise, but we're right along a pretty busy street, the phone is ringing inside, and some of my coworkers don't know how to stop their diarrhea of the mouth. [xx(]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysvh1Zp8d8g&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL_UyhKKmh0&feature=channel&list=UL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDcX-6let0&feature=channel&list=UL
 
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