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3" Catback vs. TD's

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Old May 14, 2005 | 12:58 PM
  #41  
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Dumped duals >>> non GMMG y-pipe/cat-back
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Old Jul 7, 2005 | 07:09 PM
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I know this thread is old, but I'm gonna bump it.

I'm in the same predicament as some people. I went from bone stock exhaust to Pacesetter LT's and TSP TD's. I can tell quite a big difference in the seat of the pants and I love how quickly it accelerates, but my big problems are clearance and sound. It sounds awesome, but sometimes I like to run through a gear, but I'm petrified to do that now due to how loud it is.

Also I'm pretty discouraged on my clearance issue.

My question is this. How noticable of a difference is it (in the curve) going from TD's to a ORY and Hooker catback for instance. I'll sacrifice ~5RWHP peak, but I don't want to go from TD's to a catback and be disappointed because it doesn't pull as hard.
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Old Jul 7, 2005 | 07:33 PM
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I run regular y-pipe with a SLP dual/dual catback with a single 3" cutout on my 10 second street car. "True duals" are not necessary to go fast.
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Old Jul 7, 2005 | 07:35 PM
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Haha yeah I hear ya. My thing is this. I've been reading that a lot of guys say "Well there isn't much difference in peak HP, but there's a big difference in the HP and TQ curves". I mean I can see that there might be somewhat of a difference since one set-up is two going into 1 and the other is two with an X back into two scavenging all the power it can, but I can't imagine a HUGE noticable difference b/w the curves of the two.

That's my whole thing. Right now I'd rather have a ORY and a Hooker catback.
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Old Jul 7, 2005 | 08:47 PM
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Default I think you need quieter mufflers

Sure, you don't need the duals to go fast. That's not the point. Wax, how would you run if you switched to duals? You would probably have a small gain.

Work with the clearance, if it's tucked up properly your clearance won't be any better with a 3" y-pipe, as the area on the driver's side that is lowest with the Y-pipe is as low or lower than any other point would be with duals. You can also try swapping muffler to quiet it down a little bit. Why are you scared to run through a gear?? Afraid cops will come after you or something? I have no problem running mine up to 5k or higher on a regular basis around town, so long as I don't go too fast.
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Old Jul 7, 2005 | 08:57 PM
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Originally Posted by blkZ28spt
Sure, you don't need the duals to go fast. That's not the point. Wax, how would you run if you switched to duals? You would probably have a small gain.

Work with the clearance, if it's tucked up properly your clearance won't be any better with a 3" y-pipe, as the area on the driver's side that is lowest with the Y-pipe is as low or lower than any other point would be with duals. You can also try swapping muffler to quiet it down a little bit. Why are you scared to run through a gear?? Afraid cops will come after you or something? I have no problem running mine up to 5k or higher on a regular basis around town, so long as I don't go too fast.
I'm going to work with the exhaust for the clearance issue. And yes I'm scared of cops. I'm 21 years old and I've never had a ticket *yet* (knocks on wood). I sure as hell don't wanna start now.
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Old Jul 7, 2005 | 11:08 PM
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Tickets are the only thing I'm worried about with my new true dual set up. I hope its not going to be too loud. I'm using 18" sweet thunders after the X and then going all the way out the back. It won't be louder than a cut out in the I-pipe will it? I was able to deal with that and no cats although everytime I saw a cop I closed the cutout lol.
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Old Jul 7, 2005 | 11:14 PM
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Can't say for sure on the I-pipe cutout comparison, but if you had LT's and no cats at the time it was probably as loud or louder than the duals will be.

I could have sworn, and others thought the same thing, that when i went from only the loudmouth to longtubes and dumped duals with dynomax bullets the volume was almost identical.
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Old Jul 7, 2005 | 11:22 PM
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Wow, thats surprizing. At least your giving me hope. I basicly want it as deep as possible but not so loud it wakes the whole neigborhood on startup. I'll know soon enough, I'm doing them this weekend and should have the car ready to start by next weekend.

Oh and I forgot to mention that, yes I have QTP long tubes and an F14 cam. That might make a little diffrence
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Old Jul 7, 2005 | 11:28 PM
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Are you still on stock cam? If so you will be fine. I probably wake half the apartment copmlex up on morning startup when it's nice out and windows are open, but that's the cam as much as the exhaust. One of hte maintainence guys that's on the the other side of the complex actually told me that he hears me everyday and it's like his alarm clock. He was right, he knew exactly what time I go to work.
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Old Jul 7, 2005 | 11:30 PM
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I edited my post, so yeah, good size cam ,lol. I think I'm in trouble.
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Old Jul 7, 2005 | 11:38 PM
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Yeah, it might be a little loud for your needs. My cam is bigger and lopier than an F14, but the F14 is far from stock. It won't be quiet, that's for sure.
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Old Jul 7, 2005 | 11:45 PM
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Originally Posted by blkZ28spt
Yeah, it might be a little loud for your needs. My cam is bigger and lopier than an F14, but the F14 is far from stock. It won't be quiet, that's for sure.
I was just reading your mod list. Other than your cams a little bigger, we are modded very close. We would have some fun, close racing. Where do you go to the track? My best time was a 12.2 with a 1.71 60ft. If I got that 60ft down a little we are very close. I think I should be in the 11s too once I'm done with this round of mods. 3.73s, SS4000 and QTPs w true duels. When I ran those times I had stock gears, vig 3800 and flps with corsa. If your track isn't too far from me, we should give it a go in the fall.
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 07:15 AM
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Originally Posted by mellowyellow02
how many runs were there in between these 2 10? and was it on the same day? if so those are good gains but 300 for good cat-back vs 900 for TD's is expensive. But needless to say the pics I have seen when you first installed them were nice but they still go into the same 1 muffler correct?

i missed this question the last time around.

yes there were 10 runs between the two runs. run 15 was just after installing heads with stock tune. the rest were dyno tuning. when i put the bassani on i went back to stock tuning to test it stock tune vs stock tune. then i went onto retuning the car. after about 5 more runs, i couldn't get any better than stock tuning. what this means is the duals richened up the motor and only made 1 less hp than the borla with tuning done. so, the wife's car is back to stock tune now. amazing all those bolt ons and heads with stock cam and i'm back to stock tune.

yes it goes into the same muffler. dual in/out muffler. one thing to consider is that wonderful 300 catback isn't stainless steel either. by the time you buy a stainless steel catback and after market y-pipe you have just about paid for the bassani.
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 07:24 AM
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Originally Posted by Visceral
Also remember when comparing the Borla dyno to the Tru-Duals, the Tru Duals replaced the stock Y pipe... so perhaps a aftermarket Y+the Borla might have done very differently than the stock+borla.

Here is the difference a Y-pipe can make (your results WILL vary):

on my testing, i had the bassani catted y-pipe that went with their headers. the gains would've been more if i had the stock y-pipe.

the test was in comparing exhaust systems

bassani optimum length headers and catted y-pipe (hollowed out) with borla w/small plate vs bassani optimum length headers with same hollowed cats and bassani tru-duals.
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 07:26 AM
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Originally Posted by WILWAXU
I run regular y-pipe with a SLP dual/dual catback with a single 3" cutout on my 10 second street car. "True duals" are not necessary to go fast.
may not be necessary. but, i wonder if you'd be closer to 9s with one

Last edited by mrr23; Jul 8, 2005 at 06:04 PM.
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 08:40 AM
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Honestly I'd work with what you have before you swap back. If the duals have clearance issues play with them and get them tucked up more. If they are too loud, change mufflers to something else. An ORY and Hooker catback isn't going to be dramatically quieter than true duals. Longtubes + ORY = loud, just the level of loud depends on the catback you're running (and Hooker isn't the quietest catback although it is fairly mellow). If you want quiet and clearance go with WILWAXU's setup, if you want a nice aggressive sound then I say give up a slight bit of clearance (if you tuck them up properly) and keep the true duals, but swap to a different set of mufflers. You seem like a prime candidate for a set of the Magnaflow 4x9s. We've got a car around here with TDs and those mufflers with a TRex and his car is quieter than mine with the Spiral Flows and a baby T1 cam. They are what you're looking for IMO.

Tips for TDs:
Flip your fuel lines, take a hammer to the bottom of your rear seats to give more room for the mufflers to tuck up, then spray WD40 on all the slip-fit connections on your true duals and just swivel the pieces around and play with everything until you get good clearance. Put the car on jackstands, then jack up the rear end so that the car is more "at rest" as this will get you some extra clearance on the torque arm.
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 03:31 PM
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Thanks for the advice man. I'm gonna go ahead and keep them. Last night my fiance and I were heading home (she was behind me in her car) and I said to myself "Let me drop a gear and give myself reason to keept this exhaust". So I dropped 2nd @ 50 and went through it.

I love it.

I'm also gonna go with fats/skinnies, so hopefully a taller tire will help me out too. Sorry I've bitched about clearance in a few threads I'm just discouraged.
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Old Jul 8, 2005 | 04:24 PM
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Originally Posted by josh99ta
An ORY and Hooker catback isn't going to be dramatically quieter than true duals.
I disagree. Hooker, SLP dual/dual and magnaflow are known for being relatively quiet even with an ORY. I have ridden in a board member's car that had QTP longtubes, ORY and slp dual/dual. You can't even make a comparison between my car (before cam) and his. Mine idles louder than his revs at 3-4k rpm. Driving around if you put the windows up I'll bet you could barely here it at low rpm. Basically, it was QUIET in normal driving.
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