Experience with muffler delete (Remark axleback)
05-20-19, 01:40 PM
#1
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Thread Starter
Experience with muffler delete (Remark axleback)
So I've spent the last month or so going through all the forums about a great axle-back exhaust for the 3rd gen IS and after hours of listening to youtube videos of exhaust sounds, I finally concluded that the muffler delete sounds the best. Now I didn't want to mess around with the stock exhaust, so I got a Remark exhaust, basically an axleback exhaust with no mufflers. Yes, its kinda expensive at 285, but the muffler shops in my area were quoting around 200 bucks for a muffler delete, so it made sense to just get something I could install myself.
The exhausts came really well packaged, with rubber hangers, bolts and the exhausts themselves. The tips are freakishly huge, about 4 inches I think, and honestly they look great. Anyway, even though the procedure is fairly simple, I thought I'd share my experience with it.
INSTALL
Getting the car on a lift or ramps is almost necessary, jack stands won't really cut it. After the car is lifted, start with the 4 exhaust bolts. WD40 is your friend, the spring loaded bolts on the stock exhaust were seized up so bad, I almost gave up. The bolts on the inner side are easy to get off with a 14mm socket wrench, but the bolts on the outer sides are impossible to reach. I used a 14mm ring spanner for that, its slow and painful work, because the plastic underbody cover things get in the way. So you can barely do a quarter turn at a time.
Afterwards, the rubber hangers near the bolts should be taken off, then the hangers near the tips. Stock exhaust out. Again, WD40 as much as you need on the hangers.
On to the Remark exhaust. Install is reverse of removal, so start with the rubber hangers near the tips. Point to note here, the Remark supplied rubber hangers aren't the best. They're extremely hard and are a pain to get in, much much worse to get out. I'd just stick with the stock ones.
Once the rubber hangers are in, the bolts are a different challenge. The bolts supplied are not spring loaded like the stock ones, so you've no idea how much to tighten. Best way is to keep tightening to an equal number of turns on the outer and inner sides. I can't stress this enough. The flange on the stock exhaust is made of thinner metal than the Remark exhaust, so it starts deforming if overtightened on one side. This is what was starting to happen to me, so I left both sides at equal turns, even though they could be tightened further. I didn't get a leak, so I guess it was alright, but there's really no way to be sure. And I didn't use the stock bolts because the nuts supplied by Remark were of a different material.
(Side note : Lexus really hates us modifying their cars. I want to put on a stiffer rear sway bar but the fact that its tucked away almost out of sight above the rear subframe, discourages me. In contrast, my friend's WRX, to which we also installed the axleback exhaust, has a sway bar in plain sight that you can almost lick. Also exhaust install on mine took 2 hours, his took 30 minutes.)
SOUND
Anyway, the sound. I've got to say, its similar to the youtube videos of muffler deletes when I record it, but in reality, its much much louder. And it sounds awesome, there's no doubt. Throaty at the top end, brilliant rumble at low end. Here are some clips.
Needless to say, the sound is more than satisfactory, especially for something which is a fraction of the cost of the cheapest axleback.
CONS
However, the worst part is the drone. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I expected drone to be fairly minimal, considering there's two resonators upstream. From 2000 to 2800 RPM, especially at 2500 RPM, the drone is really bad.
From what I could figure out, it wasn't really sound that I was hearing, it was vibration. The whole chassis, windows, everything vibrated pretty harshly in that rev range. Granted, this is my first time ever with an aftermarket exhaust and the car I used to own earlier was a camry (lol), so I might be a little oversensitive to drone. (Friends didn't complain, liked the deep rumble. But couldn't hear me on calls at all.) But I personally can't live with it. From talking to a few shops and friends, I'm of the opinion that the drone is not really just because of some unwanted frequencies in the exhaust sound, but because in a true dual exhaust, the same exact frequencies are being produced by the two exhaust pipes. This would lead to resonance, creating high amplitude sound waves which would cause the vibration. Sure, mufflers would help cancel out some of the undesirable frequencies, but the overlap of sound waves would still occur. This leads me to believe that this might be the reason for the inherent drone everyone complains about, no matter what exhaust they get, even the F sport.
Anyway, I tried a bunch of things, putting sound deadening material on the spare wheel well, driving in 5th gear consistently (18 MPG highway LOL) and winding down one window, but nothing's really worked significantly. The sound deadening helped a little.
I guess finally I'd like to say its a great product for what it is. If the drone doesn't bother you much, I don't think you can get a better sound out of an axleback. And almost all loud axlebacks drone anyway, so if I had to get an axleback, I'd probably get this one, or something used. I do wish Remark would supply better quality hangers and spring loaded bolts, but other than that the welds and workmanship is great.
As for performance, no noticeable changes. The loss of low end torque which most people complain about.. that's a tough one. I personally felt the low end response lacking a little, but I have a feeling it might also be because I was unconsciously trying to keep the revs below 2K and above 3K. Don't ask.
What's a bit more noticeable is the performance at higher revs. All this based on butt dyno, but the engine feels like its "getting the food it needs". No, I don't have a CAI or performance filter. I felt the torque fall off after 5000 RPM with the stock exhaust, but this feels a bit more linear. Again, not appreciable.
I'd like to end with a hypothetical/stupid question. Considering that the vibration/drone happens in a dual exhaust due to two similiar sound waves, what would be the effect of installing a resonator/muffler on one side of the axleback, and installing a different resonator/muffler on the other side, or keeping it straight piped? Try to ignore how unsymmetrical it would look.
The exhausts came really well packaged, with rubber hangers, bolts and the exhausts themselves. The tips are freakishly huge, about 4 inches I think, and honestly they look great. Anyway, even though the procedure is fairly simple, I thought I'd share my experience with it.
INSTALL
Getting the car on a lift or ramps is almost necessary, jack stands won't really cut it. After the car is lifted, start with the 4 exhaust bolts. WD40 is your friend, the spring loaded bolts on the stock exhaust were seized up so bad, I almost gave up. The bolts on the inner side are easy to get off with a 14mm socket wrench, but the bolts on the outer sides are impossible to reach. I used a 14mm ring spanner for that, its slow and painful work, because the plastic underbody cover things get in the way. So you can barely do a quarter turn at a time.
Afterwards, the rubber hangers near the bolts should be taken off, then the hangers near the tips. Stock exhaust out. Again, WD40 as much as you need on the hangers.
On to the Remark exhaust. Install is reverse of removal, so start with the rubber hangers near the tips. Point to note here, the Remark supplied rubber hangers aren't the best. They're extremely hard and are a pain to get in, much much worse to get out. I'd just stick with the stock ones.
Once the rubber hangers are in, the bolts are a different challenge. The bolts supplied are not spring loaded like the stock ones, so you've no idea how much to tighten. Best way is to keep tightening to an equal number of turns on the outer and inner sides. I can't stress this enough. The flange on the stock exhaust is made of thinner metal than the Remark exhaust, so it starts deforming if overtightened on one side. This is what was starting to happen to me, so I left both sides at equal turns, even though they could be tightened further. I didn't get a leak, so I guess it was alright, but there's really no way to be sure. And I didn't use the stock bolts because the nuts supplied by Remark were of a different material.
(Side note : Lexus really hates us modifying their cars. I want to put on a stiffer rear sway bar but the fact that its tucked away almost out of sight above the rear subframe, discourages me. In contrast, my friend's WRX, to which we also installed the axleback exhaust, has a sway bar in plain sight that you can almost lick. Also exhaust install on mine took 2 hours, his took 30 minutes.)
SOUND
Anyway, the sound. I've got to say, its similar to the youtube videos of muffler deletes when I record it, but in reality, its much much louder. And it sounds awesome, there's no doubt. Throaty at the top end, brilliant rumble at low end. Here are some clips.
Needless to say, the sound is more than satisfactory, especially for something which is a fraction of the cost of the cheapest axleback.
CONS
However, the worst part is the drone. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I expected drone to be fairly minimal, considering there's two resonators upstream. From 2000 to 2800 RPM, especially at 2500 RPM, the drone is really bad.
From what I could figure out, it wasn't really sound that I was hearing, it was vibration. The whole chassis, windows, everything vibrated pretty harshly in that rev range. Granted, this is my first time ever with an aftermarket exhaust and the car I used to own earlier was a camry (lol), so I might be a little oversensitive to drone. (Friends didn't complain, liked the deep rumble. But couldn't hear me on calls at all.) But I personally can't live with it. From talking to a few shops and friends, I'm of the opinion that the drone is not really just because of some unwanted frequencies in the exhaust sound, but because in a true dual exhaust, the same exact frequencies are being produced by the two exhaust pipes. This would lead to resonance, creating high amplitude sound waves which would cause the vibration. Sure, mufflers would help cancel out some of the undesirable frequencies, but the overlap of sound waves would still occur. This leads me to believe that this might be the reason for the inherent drone everyone complains about, no matter what exhaust they get, even the F sport.
Anyway, I tried a bunch of things, putting sound deadening material on the spare wheel well, driving in 5th gear consistently (18 MPG highway LOL) and winding down one window, but nothing's really worked significantly. The sound deadening helped a little.
I guess finally I'd like to say its a great product for what it is. If the drone doesn't bother you much, I don't think you can get a better sound out of an axleback. And almost all loud axlebacks drone anyway, so if I had to get an axleback, I'd probably get this one, or something used. I do wish Remark would supply better quality hangers and spring loaded bolts, but other than that the welds and workmanship is great.
As for performance, no noticeable changes. The loss of low end torque which most people complain about.. that's a tough one. I personally felt the low end response lacking a little, but I have a feeling it might also be because I was unconsciously trying to keep the revs below 2K and above 3K. Don't ask.
What's a bit more noticeable is the performance at higher revs. All this based on butt dyno, but the engine feels like its "getting the food it needs". No, I don't have a CAI or performance filter. I felt the torque fall off after 5000 RPM with the stock exhaust, but this feels a bit more linear. Again, not appreciable.
I'd like to end with a hypothetical/stupid question. Considering that the vibration/drone happens in a dual exhaust due to two similiar sound waves, what would be the effect of installing a resonator/muffler on one side of the axleback, and installing a different resonator/muffler on the other side, or keeping it straight piped? Try to ignore how unsymmetrical it would look.
Last edited by Shubhankar; 08-05-19 at 11:27 AM.
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jennypenny (09-19-19)
05-20-19, 02:48 PM
#2
After my years of modding, i'm now the opposite. I am interested in ways to making the powertrain even quieter. i want less noise. I want less attention. lol. i want to add even MORE mufflers and MORE resonators ( i won't, but just gives you some perspective)
If I could grow up as a young boy and do it all over again knowing what i know now? i wouldn't be touching any exhausts
cars worth tuned or sporty exhausts already come with them from the factory.
If I could grow up as a young boy and do it all over again knowing what i know now? i wouldn't be touching any exhausts
cars worth tuned or sporty exhausts already come with them from the factory.
The following users liked this post:
jay90011 (09-18-19)
05-20-19, 05:14 PM
#3
I'd like to end with a hypothetical/stupid question. Considering that the vibration/drone happens in a dual exhaust due to two similiar sound waves, what would be the effect of installing a resonator/muffler on one side of the axleback, and installing a different resonator/muffler on the other side, or keeping it straight piped? Try to ignore how unsymmetrical it would look.
The shop that put mine in said that it would "tone down" after a month or two, and they were right. As carbon builds up in the pipes it insulates them. Whereas I had some droning on the freeway at 2K cruising speed, now it's more just a mellow hum. Don't know if the same will happen when you have essentially straight-pipes from the resonators though.
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CarEnth777 (07-08-19)
05-20-19, 09:53 PM
#4
After all my exhaust shenanigans, I'm installing two exhaust cutout valves this week as I've gotten used to my catback and its too quiet for me now. Closed valve will be my current catback exhaust, and open valve will bypass mufflers. Best of both worlds.
05-21-19, 07:34 AM
#5
Driver School Candidate
Thread Starter
That actually sounds right, I've heard that longer pipes basically allow lower frequency sound to get through without too much deadening, which is basically the drone-y 2000 to 3000 RPM region. Basically higher frequency means shorter wavelength, so the oscillating waves would hit the pipe walls a lot more times than lower frequency sounds, so they'd get dampened.
As for carbon deposits, there are generally more deposits on anything which poses a restriction, like mufflers.. I guess on a straight pipe the effect is almost non existent..
As for carbon deposits, there are generally more deposits on anything which poses a restriction, like mufflers.. I guess on a straight pipe the effect is almost non existent..
05-21-19, 07:41 AM
#6
Driver School Candidate
Thread Starter
After my years of modding, i'm now the opposite. I am interested in ways to making the powertrain even quieter. i want less noise. I want less attention. lol. i want to add even MORE mufflers and MORE resonators ( i won't, but just gives you some perspective)
If I could grow up as a young boy and do it all over again knowing what i know now? i wouldn't be touching any exhausts
cars worth tuned or sporty exhausts already come with them from the factory.
If I could grow up as a young boy and do it all over again knowing what i know now? i wouldn't be touching any exhausts
cars worth tuned or sporty exhausts already come with them from the factory.
Worth mentioning that Lexus actually did a great job with the sound generator, unlike.. well BMW.
05-21-19, 07:42 AM
#7
Driver School Candidate
Thread Starter
Would love to hear how it sounds!
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05-21-19, 08:11 AM
#8
+1 for the remark axle back. I also struggled finding an axle back I liked, I tried the F-Sport, then Tanabe. Then I said !@#$ it and ditched the muffler.
I have a before/after video after adding the remark axle back to my setup:
I have a before/after video after adding the remark axle back to my setup:
05-21-19, 08:23 AM
#9
I beg you to not do this. I did this exact setup on my RC350 a couple months ago. Lets just say I ended up spending more money on exhausts then I ever thought I was going to. I got some really nice high quality cutouts and they failed after only few months of abuse.The started to rattle and leak, as well as just stopped actuating sometimes. However, when they worked, they were great...
05-21-19, 09:42 AM
#10
After my years of modding, i'm now the opposite. I am interested in ways to making the powertrain even quieter. i want less noise. I want less attention. lol. i want to add even MORE mufflers and MORE resonators ( i won't, but just gives you some perspective)
If I could grow up as a young boy and do it all over again knowing what i know now? i wouldn't be touching any exhausts
cars worth tuned or sporty exhausts already come with them from the factory.
If I could grow up as a young boy and do it all over again knowing what i know now? i wouldn't be touching any exhausts
cars worth tuned or sporty exhausts already come with them from the factory.
05-21-19, 11:11 AM
#11
you and me both. My younger self would throw an exhaust on my current lexus. My HKS Hi-Power and Apexi N1 days are done. I'm perfectly fine with stock exhaust on my IS. I actually enjoy the small hum I get from my stock exhaust. Something about pulling up to hotels and restaurants with stock muffler sounds more of my age.
09-18-19, 08:12 PM
#14
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+1 for the remark axle back. I also struggled finding an axle back I liked, I tried the F-Sport, then Tanabe. Then I said !@#$ it and ditched the muffler.
I have a before/after video after adding the remark axle back to my setup:
https://youtu.be/KKaUmcr6u-g
I have a before/after video after adding the remark axle back to my setup:
https://youtu.be/KKaUmcr6u-g
09-18-19, 08:35 PM
#15