Tomorrow, a friend of mine will be custom making me an exhaust. He will be doing a true dual, H-pipe, ending with a Magnaflow universal muffler similar to the one that ZODIAC used on his Z, only it of course will have dual inlets and dual outlets. Should I stick with the H-pipe, or should I do X-pipe? I don't want to end up with a raspy sound. I like a deeper, throatier sound. That's why I am thinking H over X. Anyone have an idea of what sort of gains I might expect from this set up?

 

If you are shopping for a catback exhaust, one with a H or X pipe is fine. But modifying an existing exhaust with a H or X pike is more trouble than it is worth. You can be certain that either will alter the horsepower and torque curves. Exactly how is an educated guess at best.

There are two drawbacks to a custom exhaust:

You haven't the faintest what it will sound like.

Neither are you certain if it will improve performance.

Best of luck.

 

i have an x-pipe and my exhaust sounds amazing. but davidv is right, it did alter my horse power, not much of a gain.

 

I did the same thing, I had a system fabricated that I thought was a "True Dual" with an "H" a couple of glass packs ending in a Dual inlet, dual outlet MagnaFlow muffler. For over a year, I had a system with terrible interior resonance (drone). The MagnaFlow (and the Borla BTW) are "X" Flow mufflers, so the exhaust for each side mingles; this is not a true dual. From the ourside it sounded OK. I finally ripped it out, and installed an Invidie G200. This is a real dual system with one muffler with 2 seperate paths. I added an "H" Pipe, and it's a great system, IMO. There is very little interior noise. It's quiet at idle and bellows like an exotic at WOT. There was a slight power increase also. My exhaust system consists of the G200, and Crawford headers and HFCs. My advice, don't do it, buy something engineered for the car, and stay away from Borla.

Lou

 

Well, he is putting it in as I type this. It's being done for next to nothing, so it's at least worth a shot. If it ends up sounding or acting like crap, I can just take it out, and get a cat back system. I'll let you guys know how it turns out. If I like it I'll post some sound clips for you all.

 

This is one of those questions like How much do you pay for insurance? No matter how redundant the question, or how worthless the answer, members feel obligated to answer. Go figure.

 

Well I went to go check on the progress. So far he had the pipes fabricated all the way back to where the muffler will be. H-pipe, with one resonator at the end of each pipe. I must say when he started it up and revved it a little the way it was, it sounded MEAN. A little on the loud side, but sounded very aggressive. He took it for a short dive and told me that it basically felt the same as far as power goes. I'm looking forward to hearing what it sounds like with the muffler. Because this exhaust is costing me next to nothing, as long as I don't lose any power, I am happy. The stock exhaust was just a little too quiet for my tastes. An engineered, dyno proven exhaust will come down the road when I pull myself away from putting money into the Supra.