Suppressing N.V.H.: quieting the exhaust and a tolerable motor mount combo
I know that most of you may not really care about the following but some may find it useful so I figured I'd share. To make a long story short my car was too loud and vibrates too much. The next two mods made the car way easier to live with. I had an ES insert in the firewall mount and a solid front motor mount, the other two were pressed with prothane inserts. I had an ES inserted front mount laying around so I swapped that for my solid front mount. Then I got a new passenger side mount from rockauto. What a difference swapping out these mounts made. I think that most of the vibration was being transmitted through the prothane-pressed passenger side mount. There is slightly more wheel hop if the tires break loose but not enough to make me go back to the pay by the hour hotel vibrating bed that I was driving before, it was too much.
Next I had to tackle the exhaust. I have a 2.5 mandrel bent setup from JGY with an EBAY header. The JGY exhaust came with a large magnaflw resonator and a magnaflow canister muffler. First I swapped out the canister style muffler for a 60 series flowmaster, the quitest flowmaster series. This helped and I had this exhaust setup for a long time...It sounded awesome when I was turbo, but I have since returned to NA. I felt it was too loud when I went back to NA. The muffler was mounted at the back of the car with no tailpipe. The end of the flowmaster was right at the rear bumper. What I did was simply move the muffler as far back under the car as I could so I could utilize a tailpipe. I removed the rear part of the exhaust and cut it right after the bend where it goes over top of the rear suspension components, then I even cut the inlet of the flowmaster as close to the case as I could. Then I welded it back together. I moved the muffler far enough back that I was able to fit a 2" diameter tailpipe which is about 12" long. I know it does not seem like much but it made a huge difference, it is half as loud as it was and it sounds pretty good. My presence is known when I get on it but it's never raspy or obnoxious. At this point the cold air intake is way louder than the exhaust. I know a 2" restriction at the end of my 2.5" exhaust is hurting performance but I couldn't tell the difference.
I know I have said this before but many of the aftermarket mufflers we put on our cars are designed to be used with a tailpipe, not mounted right at the back of the car with the outlet sticking out from under the bumper, especially the oval cased magnaflows that seem to be popular on here. Adding a tailpipe really quiets things down....if you want to that is....or maybe I am just getting too old.
Next I had to tackle the exhaust. I have a 2.5 mandrel bent setup from JGY with an EBAY header. The JGY exhaust came with a large magnaflw resonator and a magnaflow canister muffler. First I swapped out the canister style muffler for a 60 series flowmaster, the quitest flowmaster series. This helped and I had this exhaust setup for a long time...It sounded awesome when I was turbo, but I have since returned to NA. I felt it was too loud when I went back to NA. The muffler was mounted at the back of the car with no tailpipe. The end of the flowmaster was right at the rear bumper. What I did was simply move the muffler as far back under the car as I could so I could utilize a tailpipe. I removed the rear part of the exhaust and cut it right after the bend where it goes over top of the rear suspension components, then I even cut the inlet of the flowmaster as close to the case as I could. Then I welded it back together. I moved the muffler far enough back that I was able to fit a 2" diameter tailpipe which is about 12" long. I know it does not seem like much but it made a huge difference, it is half as loud as it was and it sounds pretty good. My presence is known when I get on it but it's never raspy or obnoxious. At this point the cold air intake is way louder than the exhaust. I know a 2" restriction at the end of my 2.5" exhaust is hurting performance but I couldn't tell the difference.
I know I have said this before but many of the aftermarket mufflers we put on our cars are designed to be used with a tailpipe, not mounted right at the back of the car with the outlet sticking out from under the bumper, especially the oval cased magnaflows that seem to be popular on here. Adding a tailpipe really quiets things down....if you want to that is....or maybe I am just getting too old.
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