i have a stock exhaust system right now, but i know the manufacturers make unnecessary bends and curves to reduce noise or something. would i see much difference in performance or noise if i got an aftermarket cat back exhaust? such as magna flow or something?
About the only difference is that the engine will make more noise. Changes to performance will be minuscule. This is because the muffler and tail pipe has not been the most restrictive pat of the exhaust for many years. It is the catalytic converter and what is ahead of it where all of the restriction is. One restriction. Most modern V6 or V8 engine will have a Y pipe where the exhaust will combine into a single pipe and go int s single catalytic converter or series of catalytic converters. If you live in a location that does emissions testing you are not allowed to alter this configuration. Many times this single exhaust will go through another Y pipe to give a fake dual exhaust. The fake dual exhaust part (Car Back) of the exhaust is the only part you can usually legally alter. Even if you went and replaced the entire exhaust from the cylinder heads to the back of the car, there isn't all that much power to be gained. 5% at best. A lot of money for minimal gains. There are issues that you can expect if you start messing with the catalytic converters or the exhaust between the catalytic converters. First. The factory engineers have tuned this engine to run with a known amount of exhaust back pressure. Alter this back pressure and the engine will be out of tune. You may lose power instead of gain. Also. The oxygen sensor(s) are configured for an expected exhaust temperature range. Alter the exhaust back pressure and you alter the exhaust gas temperature. Your oxygen sensor(s) are no sending bad information to the engine management computer. You may lose power instead of gain. But your cat back exhaust will make your wallet lighter. Maybe your lighter wallet will make you go faster.
It is not the catalytic converter or bends in the pipes that cause problems there needs to be back pressure for the engine to run its optimum. People do not seem to get there is no big conspiricy to hide horse power or any of that other happy horse sh it people keep yapping about. If you want your engine to have an extra 200 hp then you need to spend the money on a bigger injection system a better intake and heads to increase the flow then rebuild the head with larger valves and have it polished and ported as necessary. After all that you now need to free up the exhaust so you can go with your performance one. Otherwise a stock engine is not suddenly going to ' WAKE UP ' just because you spent 400 bucks on an exhaust. save your money and buy a bigger more powerful engine or a bigger more powerful car. There are always trade offs in performance. the more fuel and engine uses the more horsepower it makes the bigger your gas bill. performance and economy are possible but extremely expensive beyond what most of us can afford.
Well .a little bit of misunderstanding all around. .but i know the manufacturers make unnecessary bends and curves to reduce noise or something. No, they don't. The factory engineers route the piping with respect to under car obstacles, ground clearance and to stem potential interior resonances among other things. Most aftermarket catback systems will very closely match the factory exhaust routing. What the aftermarket kits typically do is use larger diameter pipe and do what's called mandrel bending of the pipe. Whereas the factory tends to crimp the bends, which tends to neck down the pipe at the bends, mandrel bends maintain the full diameter of the pipe through all the bends. Typically, the most restrictive component in the stock exhaust is the factory muffler. It is designed to make the interior of the vehicle quiet .quell any resonances that can occur .and to quiet the exhaust note from the tailpipe. Modern catalytic converters look like a honeycomb inside. They are usually larger in cross section and are not nearly as restrictive as everyone thinks they are. As for any noticeable performance gains from installing a cat back system, you'd be hard pressed to find any. The only difference will be in the sound most tend to be louder than stock by varying degrees. They also have a tendency to increase the chances of some interior boominess or bad resonances. If all you ultimately want to do is alter the sound of the vehicle, you can buy a correct fitting higher flow muffler and have a local muffler shop install it for you using your existing pipes. You can probably get the whole thing done for about $100 or so. Toss in a stainless steel exhaust tip and everyone will think you spent big bucks on a full-on exhaust system.
