Top Gear 996 turbo mufflers with 200 cell cats. Bolts up super easy, sounds great, performs awesome, **some** 2200rpm drone, throws a catalyst miscompare cel after 20 miles—reset—does it again. Super lightweight. And sounds great.
I’m told that a plug fouler will fix the cel. I pulled it before researching the cel. If it doesn’t sell, I’m leaning towards trying again with a plug fouler kit now that I know what that is and how lightweight it is. Sturdy construction- kind of impressive for how cheap it is.
Amazingly easy to install. Next time I won’t even pull the bumper cover and stuff. Re-installing the factory muffler is kind of a pain for one person tho.
$55.00 local pickup only.

 

This looks like TopGear exhaust. You make it sound like they are 2nd class. They make good stuff. The best way to get rid of the CEL is to get a tune, it would free up some extra ponies as well.
And all aftermarket exhausts produce some amount of drone!

GLWS or if you decide to keep them, enjoy!

 

It is a Top Gear system, and the construction, fit, tone and obvious performance upgrade makes it an impressive value.

The only issue I have is the cel.

Long post alert:

Saga:

My car had .9+ bar tune installed when I bought it and also the Modified OEM muffler discussed in a 40 page thread on this forum.

When I test drove my 01 manual turbo coupe at the used car lot last year, I immediately noticed how quickly the engine would rev 1800-5000 and it felt very obviously, much faster than my 05 turbo S!
After repeated test drives, I bought the car. I did not realize the car was tuned nor did I realize the OEM muffler was modded. Why? Because it sounded the same as my 05 Turbo S with factory muffler.
I drove the car for months before someone looked into the exhaust tips and asked “what are those holes…?”
I then realized the muffler was modded. At about the same time I contacted Marski about a tune for the car. After an in-car driving test he said my car had a tune already since .7 bar was about tops for factory delivered non-X50 cars.
That tune + the modded muffler really woke the car up - it would easily spank the turbo S hands down, every time 0-80. The revs came on super fast and the engine felt like it loved it. Super fun to drive at daily driver speeds!

I should have left well alone, but decided to replace the 98,000 mile motor mounts with WEVO solids. That corrected the exhaust tip sag and made the car feel very solid overall, but I noticed a simultaneous “drone” occurring? I then sourced a used factory turbo muffler - my reasoning was “how is it possible that a couple holes cut in a factory muffler make any difference at all…?” I had not seen the Modified OEM Muffler thread.
A buddy of mine and I pulled the modded muffler and installed the used factory muffler and it was very quiet yes, but now right off the bat, the car felt kind off dull, it absolutely did not have that free-wheeling, get-up-and-go it had before. Extremely obvious that the modded muffler actually worked!

So then I found the Top Gear system on EBay- the ad said that it would pass UK MOT testing so I bought it. I was able to remove the factory muffler myself (I learned a lot from the muffler installation previously) and very easily installed the Top Gear system in literally a few minutes.

Yay - performance was back, sounded better too but more noticeable drone than the Modded muffler. And almost immediately I started getting the cel codes.
At that point I became discouraged and pulled the Top Gear system without chatting with the Seller of that system where I would learn about the “plug defouler” approach. I reinstalled the factory muffler myself, and in retrospect, I should have re-installed the modded muffler.
But curiously I still felt like the car was a little “noisy” - not at all the deep and smooth tone like my TurboS. So i pulled the WEVO mounts and installed OM mounts - quieter, but still something About the noise that I didn’t like.

At the same time, I began thinking of replacing the suspension because the rear end was feeling like it had stiff springs installed (the PO did track the car, right?) - kind of jarring when the rear tires hit my driveway lip at 20mph. The turbo S didn’t do that.
During my research to install new shocks/springs I got into the back seat area and when I pulled the carpet to look at the rear shock mount nuts I saw a rear suspension brace had been installed! (made sense, The previous owner tracked it once or twice). After pulling that brace, the car is now super quiet and does NOT have that jarring thud when approaching our driveway in a reverse bat mobile manner😅

I have learned a lot during this adventure. If the Top Gear system didn’t throw a cel, I’d immediately put it back on. I also feel like I could install it without removing the rear bumper cover and all that involved process. I feel that the drone might be tolerable with the stock motor mounts and and removal of the rear brace for sure and would definitely compliment the 1 bar tune.

I did consider having a new tune installed and have the tuner, “tune out” the cat miscompare, but decided I wanted to keep it simple and uncomplicated.
Hope that helps!

Thoughts? Maybe yank the factory muffler and try Top Gear with plug defouler???

 

The TopGear system uses 200-cell catalysts which is causing CEL. This is a very common issue with sport cats. Find a custom tuner and get them to tune out this check. Or try the cheaper route and install the O2 spacers.
You will get extra hp and even quicker rev up with sport cats.

 

Thanks for those suggestions - probably try defouler route first.

 

Bump…price now 600 local pickup…

 

Ever make the trip closer to the NC area? Possibly interested in these if so. Feel free to message me. Thanks!

 

moving this up a little, been a while…

 

Charlie, can you text me? Might be in Northern VA this week.
(919) 413-4776