Quote:
Originally Posted by Nexus-6
Hi folks,
I installed a set of AWE cat pipes last night on my '05 C2S. Stock headers, stock mufflers.
Volume levels were expected, but the raspy nature of this change was not. At first, I suspected a leak at either the header flange or muffler 'sleeve', but everything is airtight (checked hot and cold).
My research via search tells me that swapping out the headers for either AWE units or x51s would solve (or at least reduce) this issue. Am I on track? It appears that headers + sport cats with the stock cans is the way to go with this issue, versus stock headers + sport cats and aftermarket cans for instance. Please correct me if I'm mistaken here before I spend more $. 
I'd love to splurge on the AWE headers, but can't justify the price difference over the Suncoast offering (x51 at half of the AWEs) at the moment.
Primarily I'm just interested in eliminating the part throttle rasp/nasal tone I'm hearing between 3K ~ 4K, not looking for more power or volume at this point.
FWIW, full stick WOT sounds fantastic. It's simply that 3K partial throttle tone that had me, sadly, short shifting all day to avoid that range as it sounds rather obnoxious IMO.   |
I once had this same combo on my car (for a VERY short time) and can confirm your experiences are exactly the same as mine - it sounds like a trash can full of ball bearings at mid rpms. Horrible.
Unfortunately just replacing the stock headers (as I did at first) makes no difference to this sound. Sorry! Slightly different tone but still the ball bearings at 3-4000 rpm. And just to make things worse, using the stock header with AWE's cat/muffler combo is incredibly boomy but adding the headers fixes this nicely. AWE's cats simply work best together with their mufflers and headers. Mix and match isn't really effective.