3.0L even fire dual exhaust

[Farrar]

For anyone interested. I did my best to capture the best sound I could, using headphones to monitor. This was made for someone who was interested in the mufflers I used.

[jangell]

Just curious, but how loud is it? I’m guessing it’s not exactly quiet, but it’s really hard to tell from a video with no other sounds or a dB meter for reference.

— Joe

[Farrar]

When I bought the car in 2007, it had Houston's 2004 "Performance Exhaust" on it. I'd say this setup is comparable in terms of volume.

I have a pretty good field recording kit, but I don't have an SPL meter.

[jangell]

Thanks! Those mufflers do seem to put out a nice sound.

I’ve almost finally got my 3.0L on the road with cats and a Borla Pro XS in a slightly odd configuration, plus some Car Chemistry silencers in an attempt to make a sort of quieter exhaust, but there’s really no space to put any real silencing measures in their —in my (not even remotely tuned) tests, it doesn’t sound quiet at all. Not much to be done as long as it’s a gas engine, I guess.

— Joe

[Farrar]

Sounds like an interesting setup. That's the same muffler I used, but as you can see I used two of them.

I wanted to use some resonators to quiet things down, but I couldn't find enough space to mount them. C'est la vie, I suppose.

[jangell]

Ah yes, right at the beginning of your video you say that, and I somehow overlooked it.

Some Googling suggested the Borla Pro XS is the "quietest", although this is a relative term -- the test setup was on a Mustang in a garage without cats and it was around 80 dB idling. The problem with finding quieting solutions is that anything aftermarket seems to assume you want power and noise. Probably because stock exhausts are already pretty quiet in most cars, and ours are a bit of an exception.

I had plans of using cats, then a 45 degree up-angle to some Vibrant Ultra Quiet Resonators into an X pipe, then back down to mufflers on each side before exiting the tail pipe. That went out the door once I simply placed the resonator at the 45 degree angle -- it'll either poke out of the engine bay or go well below the bumper. And there wasn't enough room to fit the single in/single out mufflers below it either. I also considered some convoluted plan where I'd run the pipes forwards, but I doubt there's room for that. I looked at Porsche exhaust setups, but they seem to have a lot more room to work with.

The one I'm using is the dual in/dual out design, positioned about where the original muffler would be. This isn't really a muffler like the DMC one (it's designed to run to the engine from the same side, not opposite sides), so I am running the driver's side from the engine and into the "top" chamber, then out the top again to the tail pipe. The passenger side uses the bottom. The interesting bit will be the hole between the chambers that links them; the small amount of gasses going the opposite direction shouldn't be a real problem, but I'm pretty much making this up as I go along. . The muffler sits a little low, but I'm limited by the odd run of the pipes.

The Car Chemistry silencers are the three-disc variety, plus I welded on both caps and put stuffed the discs with a conservative amount of stainless steel wool. I got one per side, and riveted them in the pipes between the cats and the mufflers. For headers, I have the ones from a DPI.

Even this setup just barely fits, with millimeters between the back of the subframe and the muffler. Mostly this is because I clamped the bulk of the exhaust instead of welding it, and am using 2.5" pipes and 90 degree bends (since I have no means to bend pipes) with the tightest bends available (2.5"), and even the smallest 50 state cats I could readily find (Walkers) just barely fit. Once the engine is running reliably I'll have to check for exhaust leaks around the clamped areas, which wouldn't surprise me at all.

-- Joe