keeph8n

Im looking to upgrade and tuck my exhaust on my 94 ls400. I'm currently looking at purchasing 2 magnaflow 14829 mufflers for the very rear. My questions are do I try and go with an x pipe right after the cats, then into a dual in/out muffler then into the 14289s, or do I just try and run the x pipe with 2 long glasspacks.

I want aggressive (AMG or M series v8), but do not want drone or for it to be obnoxious outside.

I just want a clean but aggressive note. Any input?

JM51526

I did a simple resonator delete and replaced my mufflers with Magnaflows. No drone, sounds good. In fact I don't even hear it inside the car unless it's accelerating briskly. Keeps the luxury car feel and sound with just a little bite.

I also kept the stock mufflers and resonators in case I ever want to go back to stock.

Caniac14

I deleted all four of my mufflers (96 LS) and I have very little almost unnoticeable highway drone at anything below 70. With the radio barely on I can't even hear the exhaust.

And it has that amazing V8 sound when you romp on it.

keeph8n

Looks like I will try the traditional x-pipe after the cats with a dual/dual muffler before hitting my 14829s out back.

timmy0tool

iTrader: (7)

if you add mufflers before the magnaflows you'll get the same OEM sound or only slightly louder. why not just run the 14829s out back after the x-pipe? afraid it will be too loud?

Shmee

iTrader: (3)

Having built many exhausts for customers in my day, I have found that most of the drone can be eliminated with a quality tube resonator like the magnaflow 4",5"&6" round mufflers before the main mufflers.
Another good way is to "Y" your exhaust into one of those long tube mufflers, and "Y" it back out to the mufflers.

IMHO, glasspacks do not improve sound and are a waste of money

Also, most off the shelf "X-pipes" are not very free flowing and often cause a restriction because the merge is not optimized for flow and just acts as a collector. On our cars, they are probably perfectly adaquate considering most people are after the sound and not the power.

That said, the best generic x-pipe are built out of 2 die-forged 90° elbows with 1" cut back off the hump, then welded together, like this:
You get the right amount of cross flow while maintaining or improving pulse velocity and increasing scavenging across the banks.

Yes there are better ways as well, but short of being an engineer with a PhD in Fluid dynamics, either what I posted or a more expensive BurnsStainless X-pipe are your best bets for power. Nice part about the option I suggested is it's relatively cheap and easy to weld together and in!

rick1987

iTrader: (1)

Have you tried a simple rear muffler delete? I think it's perfect.
Loud enough around town, quite on the highway, and screams wide open.

Kingsoup

Nice post Shmee!

PureDrifter

iTrader: (10)

I need to get a new video u once the headers are bedded in...

Shmee

iTrader: (3)

Headers??
PD, you holding out on us?

keeph8n

So instead of the x pipe and dual in/out mufflers I need to look at doing a set of dual/single mufflers or actual y-pipes?

Trying to figure out what you meant by tube mufflers. I don't mind spending money to get the sound I want. I mean I am looking at stainless mufflers and piping

Shmee

iTrader: (3)

I actually said a Tube resonator, which is just a round muffler as opposed to a oval muffler such as a Magnaflow 10435 muffler. you can often fit them the tunnel better than big bulky oval mufflers.

You can do whatever you want, but short of actually sitting down and engineering a system, you're not going to see a big difference in power from one setup to another. it's more about the sound.

Keep in mind I'm speaking from a position where spending $2-3k+ on a hand fabricated, fully Tig'ed, polished food-grade 316ss exhaust is not unusual for my customers.... Not the same as a $300 at a muffler shop job, with mig'ed galvanized. crush-bent tube and generic mufflers, all in. Not that there is anything wrong with that sort of exhaust, just not what we built. A lot of our customers had more money then brains and would buy chrome/polished versions of parts you would never see just to say they had them and spent more money...

When I was seriously looking at doing an exhaust for my LS, I looked at a lot of options from an early merge Y into a 3" single all the way back; duals with both X and H-pipes; and a stock double Y setup. I was also looking at doing a single path, twin 2" with custom mufflers but that was a bit too much for a $3500 car! :P

One option I liked was this:
dual from the cats to a Magnaflow 14385 in the centre section back to dual 14325s in the stock resonator locations back to another set of mufflers at the bumper, possibly another pair of 14325s with turn downs or maybe something with a couple of big VIP style tips...

I've done similar setups on lots of domestic V8s and Big German sleds, they all have sounded really good. Not that typical bark and rasp but a very hard growl with a nice burble on decal... Kind of like a new Quattroporte, but not at the same time. Hard to explain the noise but you'd never be told it sounded bad or was too loud. Also maintained a stock noise level at normal cruising speeds with no drone but definitely had presence when you got on it.


Not cheap though... You're looking at over $700 in just mufflers and thats without tubing or flanges or hangers or tips or install.

you could basically do the above setup and leave the rear mufflers off, run it for a while and then add them in later if you wanted it quieter or mellower...

like i said, you can do whatever you want!