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Installed PPE EL Headers this morning and the car has finally woken up! Car has the invidia q300 catback.
Hard for me to get an idea of the exterior sound at the moment but I feel there is a strong vibration coming from the exhaust system in the 3300-4000 rpm range. It sounds raspy within that band, strong reverberation or something. I did some research online and found some folks with Subaru invidia exhausts experienced similar sound/vibrations due to movement of the baffles within the mufflers.
Anyone have experience with this? I do feel the car pulls stronger though. Looking forward to re-tuning and getting new dyno results. Will give it a few days to decide if I want to change catback exhaust setup.
I don't think it is the Invidia. Never heard of Invidia causing any rattling. I think it is your headers installation where it is touching something. Headers installation is very tricky and can cause some rattling if there are clearance issues in the installation.
After I had my headers installed my catback was rubbing a bolt which was causing a terrible sound. We had to take it off the car and hammer that particular spot. No issues since. I am running no-EL ppe headers.
What engine mounts did you use? The EL headers don't leave any room for error. I had a vibration noise that I only really noticed at low speeds, like in a parking lot, and found one of the runners was hitting the subframe. I'm using RR Racing engine mounts, and my shop was able to fix this recently by fabricating some spacers to raise up the mounts and give a little bit more clearance. I've seen RR reply to some facebook threads sometimes to stack some washers to raise up the engine.
Basically verify you have good clearance before getting worried about the exhaust.
I have the same Invidia + PPE EL combo and haven't noticed that issue. Certainly possible you have a bad exhaust, but it's definitely not a normal occurrence.
Here's a video I took with a microphone taped to the back bumper to give you an idea of what it sounds like outside the car.
What engine mounts did you use? The EL headers don't leave any room for error. I had a vibration noise that I only really noticed at low speeds, like in a parking lot, and found one of the runners was hitting the subframe. I'm using RR Racing engine mounts, and my shop was able to fix this recently by fabricating some spacers to raise up the mounts and give a little bit more clearance. I've seen RR reply to some facebook threads sometimes to stack some washers to raise up the engine.
Basically verify you have good clearance before getting worried about the exhaust.
I have the same Invidia + PPE EL combo and haven't noticed that issue. Certainly possible you have a bad exhaust, but it's definitely not a normal occurrence.
Here's a video I took with a microphone taped to the back bumper to give you an idea of what it sounds like outside the car.
That sounds great! How is the interior noise? Considering EL or UL Headers for my TE with maybe an aftermarket midpipe and stock axleback but also don't want it to have too much droning or a superloud interior noise, as long as it's not as loud as a muffler delete, I should be good lol!
If you happen to have an interior recording, that would be awesome!
After I had my headers installed my catback was rubbing a bolt which was causing a terrible sound. We had to take it off the car and hammer that particular spot. No issues since. I am running no-EL ppe headers.
Same thing happened to me with my Invidia and PPE UEL headers.
Lifted the car yesterday and we looked at the undercarriage... had someone in the car rev it as we inspected. Seems like it's just slight resonating sound in the pipe itself. There was a plastic aero trim piece that goes between the engine bay and wheel well touching the headers on the driver's side which had partially melted. We removed it.
Last edited by Movelexus; Feb 14, 2023 at 10:56 AM.
Lifted the car yesterday and we looked at the undercarriage... had someone in the car rev it as we inspected. Seems like it's just slight resonating sound in the pipe itself. There was a plastic aero trim piece that goes between the engine bay and wheel well touching the headers on the driver's side which had partially melted. We removed it.
I think I started melting that same part. I put a piece of adhesive heat wrap over it and haven't had an issue since. You may also need to make some minor adjustments to get the engine centered better. Both the subframe and the engine mounts have oval holes for quite a bit of adjustment.
PPE EL Headers + Q300 sound question.
