Would new exhaust on my 97 ls 400 do anything other than sound good?

 

Welcome to CL. This topic has been covered in great depth. You should search however I will add my $.02. I have a 95 and the first thing I did was remove the (2) middle resonators (they look like mufflers) and ran new pipe to the stock mufflers. I noticed the car sounded a little louder on the outside but not in the cabin. I didn't really notice any performance gains.

Next I upgraded to MagnaFlow high flow mufflers. I removed the smaller resonator and again ran new pipe. I am curretnly using the OEM Y-pipes. The sound increased quite a bit on the outside and marginally in the cabin. Supposedly I picked up a handful of horsepower according to MagnaFlow but who really knows without the use of a dyno before and after.

Bottom line is I like it now and it sounds pretty narly -nothing like you'd think a Lexus should sound.

 

thanks for your .02 nice car by the way

 

I just posted up pics in a thread of the mufflers on my 97. It wasn't totally finished so I'm just waiting for the weather up here in WA to get nice so I can get some cool pictures of how it looks now.

I just had 2 chrome mufflers put on, and replaced the pipe exiting from the pre-muffs to the end muffs with 2 1/4". also had the 3rd cat straight piped. It sounds pretty good when I get on the gas, but at a cruise on the highway it's still totally silent! I love it. No noticeable gains by my seat of the pants guage.

My old lex however....wow.... I had the cats removed, all piping replaced with 2 1/4" pipe, big resonators, and nice muffs. It sounded awesome!

I'll probably have my entire system done someday in the future, but I really like how it's setup right now.


Good luck!! Welcome to CL!

 

I did very similar. But I didnt get new mufflers welded. I still have stock but their a bit loose, their not tightened. Sounds good, kinda like flowmasters. Not too loud in cabin by the way.