Hey Adam - I tried about a dozen variations of exhaust and here's what I found out.
First, when listening to a clip you have to be aware that you can only compare a 2WD exhaust to another 2WD car. As you know, you have one set of cats... but the 94 up cars have 2 sets of cats (4), there's a set of primary and secondary cats. When guys pull the cats, it's usually the secondary and they leave on the primary in place.
I went from stock to Tubi. No big difference other than weight savings. Next I did Tubi straight pipes. Way to loud! On start up it was louder than my custom chopper with shorty pipes (literally twice as loud). The straight pipes sounded "hokey" under acceleration and also a lot of backfire on down shifting due to total lack of back pressure. Note-a little back pressure is a good thing and helps with keeping torque up.
Next, I replaced the straight pipes with Quicksilver resonators.. they look like cats, are free flow, but have baffles to enhance the sound and stop backfire. Total waste of money - car sounded totally stock and way to restrictive, you could feel the car chocking...
There was a lot more testing, but bottom line.... I bought some used stock cats, had them opened up and hollowed out. This is the silver bullet! Free flow and no backfire... and incredible sound under load.
Not long ago I did a freeway run after a car show with the local FCar guys. I nailed it in 2nd and passed a string of FCars up to about 110-120 to take the lead. When we made our first stop for fuel 3 or 4 people came up to me and asked what kind of exhaust I was running because it sounded so good. It will really give you a great "bark" under load.
You can do a conversion for under $100, so try this first before anything else.
|