Greetings ClubLexus!

It’s been a long time since I’ve been active on the site. I bought my 2001 GS430 on this site a decade ago and was an avid Lexus enthusiast here for years. I’m sure some of you long timer guys will remember my suspension posts.

Anyway, life happened... kids, house, work, you guys know the song and I haven’t been too active in the car hobby over the last 4-5yrs.

I still daily drive my Lexus and still do all the maintenance myself even though I don’t do too much modification these days.

Fast forward to today: When I bought my car in 2011, the previous owner deleted the stock resonators and welded in a pair of no-name performance mufflers. Today, those mufflers are toast as the internal material has rusted away and I’m getting rattling from inside the mufflers.

I was planning on replacing them with either a Dynomax Superturbo or Magnaflow mufflers.

I like a clean deep exhaust note, not too loud and not raspy as this is more or less a family commute car now.

Some people have recommended that I do a muffler delete since I still have my Oem cats. However, I think that might be too loud.

What do you guys recommend for mufflers? I can have the replacement mufflers installed for $200-250 locally depending on whether I go with the cheaper turbo mufflers or the more expensive Magnaflow.

I look forward to your reply. Thank you!

 

I had Magnaflows on my SC300 back in the day and really liked them. They were affordable too.

Borla is another good option. I currently have a set and they gave my car a deep sound but they’re extremely quiet. Flowmasters sound good with the V8 too and Megan has some good options as well.

 

+1 for Borla. I have that on my GS4 and it’s a nice deep sound not too loud very similar to stock. Definitely DONT do a muffler delete, that ruins the sexy quiet deep sound the GS4 has. It also does something to the way it drives since it changes the pressure on the exhaust I heard.

 

I like the straight pipe sound on my LS but it’s too noisy sometimes. A muffler delete while keeping the resonators sounds good on the 3UZ.

Your Borla seems like a nice setup on the GS430. My Borla mufflers made my SC300 sound a little louder than stock. I’d love to try them on an LS430/GS430.

 

There are still a few active videos that people have recorded to share how their set up sounds. A lot of them are old and no longer work. But that would be a good place to start, if the tone is a major factor in your choice. There are so many components that come into play on the exhaust on either I6 or V8. I have always tried to start at the beginning and work my way back. Ideally a good set of headers and then use bigger mufflers to drop the decibels down to where I want. A car back exhaust on these cars isn’t the drastic difference it is in most cars. But u could replace the resonators with straight pipes to increase the sound level. It seems like the specific sound a muffler makes changes over time. So keep that in mind before a big premium for a specific muffler, just cause u love the way it sounds. Sometimes a budget muffler with a full custom exhaust is the better option than just getting the best catback. One factor that can have a big effect on the sound is the type of metal the system is made of. Stainless steel has always been a favorite of mine. You’ll also get a much longer life, but the cost is substantially more.
Let us k ow what you end up putting together and any details that can help other people in the future.

 

I ended up going Magnaflow, sound great.

GS430 with resonator delete + 2.5” Magnaflow catback - ClubLexus - Lexus Forum Discussion