Saviour92

Hey all,

I'm new to the scene. Have a 2004 is300, and I'm looking to put headers on it. Currently has muffler delete and kn intake. I love the deep and throaty sound it has right now, will putting headers on it change that tone or just make it louder? Do different brands have different results? Thank you!

-Saviour

1997Soarer

iTrader: (1)

I'm pretty much in your same situation. I'm not new to 2JZ motors but I'm new to IS300s. Header design makes a big difference in sound, but for the IS300 there seems to be only a few options for manifolds, and they seeem to be real or replica versions of the same header design. Years ago my friend had the SRT intake and a Apexi N1 catback. When he installed a Toyomoto header, the car got noticably louder under load and idle. I thought it sounded good, but he said it had more rasp around 3000 rpm than he liked and he was looking at installing another resonator. I forgot if he ever did or not. But it worked out in his favor because he got a HKS cam gear installed months later and when he had it adjusted and tuned on a dyno, not only did he gain power but the rasp went away.

The size of the exhaust determines how deep the tone is. My SC300 with 80mm exhaust is deeper in tone than his IS300 mostly because his catback piping was somewhere around 70mm at most.

Saviour92

Awesome, this is a good start.
I hate the sounds all these Honda civics in SoCal have where they whine and rasp. It just doesn't sound appealing and I can help but chuckle. Maybe I'm just an a-hole, but sound is really a factor for me. So what ever I can do to maintain that deep clean sound while boosting horsepower is ultimately what I'm looking for.
Thank you!

1997Soarer

iTrader: (1)

Raspy-ness is the sound of the exhaust as the engine resonates. On the 2J motors it happens twice: once in the mid 3000s and again in the 6000s. You can tell its happening because theres that point on acceleration where you can suddenly hear the intake and motor and it sounds louder than before and then you keep gaining rpm and suddenly your exhaust sound quieter. Resonators are designed to tune out the rasp.

It happens with any car, but since hondas are 4 cylinders with narrow exhaust piping, replacing a muffler can make one sound bad real fast. Lexus cars have larger resonators paired with large baffled mufflers, so that keeps our [stock] cars very quiet.

The catalytic converters also do a good job of muffling noise as well. The IS300 has 3; the SC300 has 3 or 2 depending on year.

1997Soarer

iTrader: (1)

Regardless of the car, running a straight pipe (sometimes refered to as a blast pipe) will create the loudest and raspy-iest exhaust sound.

Saviour92

I want to definitely avoid raspy gargling sounds like the Hondas. My main concern is will aftermarket headers change the sound entirely, or simply make the existing sound louder?