Aftermarket mufflers - power loss?

[bigjae46]

Most of the power gains are in the headers and 1st half of the exhaust. Megan headers and BW race 3.5" = 325whp with a canned tune, 337whp with an epic tune. So there is a lot of power gains with an exhaust/tune.

I think the S54 exhaust sounds suck. Aftermarket exhausts generally invoke mental images of rice fields. Uncorked, like mine, it sounds like a boat fog horn wail at an ear drum busting frequency.

IMO, the best combo is a CSL intake and a stock exhaust.

[smee123]

Most of the power gains are in the headers and 1st half of the exhaust. Megan headers and BW race 3.5" = 325whp with a canned tune, 337whp with an epic tune. So there is a lot of power gains with an exhaust/tune.

.

I am going to echo this. By the time the exhaust is all the way to the muffler it lost a lot of velocity and temperature where it does not make a tremendous difference. The headers , section 1 and most importantly where the cross over / merge is, have the biggest effects on what is gained or lost. I cycled through a few combinations in both of my e36s and now my 330 zhp. SS v1s stepped with catted section 1 and resonated section 2 is so far the best I could get. Anything beyond that is trivial and did not make much of a difference. Retaining a twin setup will yield the best mix of both hp and tq and therefore the best all around. I had an epic tune and epic exhaust on one of the e36s, terminated into a 3.5 inch bw race. Crazy top end, partial throttle and tow in were absolute horrid (mostly due to the tune).