Well, I installed my new GReddy Evo2 exhaust on my car and here are my impressions.
Shipping:
It took a little longer for the system to ship than I expected, but when it arrived, I found the box in decent shape and the exhaust was packaged quite nicely.
Quality and Craftmanship
The only problem with the exhaust as it was shipped was a little dent on the tip of the pipe causing it to no longer form a perfect circle. In the picture, you can see the dent at about the 4:00 position, though it is really at the 10:00 position as it is installed on the car because in the picture, I had the muffler upside down.
In the above picture, you can also see the baffles in the muffler. Clearly, it is a straight through design as are the baffles in the midpipe pictured below.
For those of you who haven’t been under your cars yet, here are two pics of what the stock exhaust system looks like. Note the amount of rust on my 1.5 year old exhaust system.
Here’s a comparison of what the stock muffler looks like compared to the GReddy.
Removal of the Stock System
This went smoothly for the most part. I put some lube on the bolts and removed the nuts. Three out of four nuts on the stock system came of with next to no drama, though they were hard to turn the entire time due to the caked-on rust covering the bolts. However, this one nut turned out to be a problem. Because of the rust, you really had to turn the nuts hard in order to get them to come off. While trying to remove this one, I could fee the socket stripping the top of the nut instead of actually twisting it off of the bolt. To solve the problem, I tried torching the nut.
It still didn’t want to turn without stripping, so I grabbed this convenient tool that you pound onto the nut and then twist off with the socket wrench. Once you do this, you can’t really re-use the nut, but at least it gets the darn thing off.
The only other difficult part about removing the stock system was pulling the metal brackets on the exhaust system out from the rubber mounting hangers. I sprayed a little lube on them and worked at them for a while and they finally came off.
Installation:
Installing the system was an absolute breeze. It couldn’t have taken more than 10 minutes. However, there was one significant problem with the GReddy mounting brackets. The GReddy system had all the same hooks that would slide into the same rubber mounting hangers that the stock system slid into, except for one. The hook on the muffler of the stock system pointed straight back, but the hook on the muffler of the GReddy system pointed off to the side. In this picture, you can see, just above the tip of the muffler outlet, there is a rubber mounting hanger that the stock hook slid into. The GReddy hook can be seen farther back in the picture, pointing off to the side.
There was no way this hook would fit into that rubber hanger. Worse yet, without that final hanger, though the exhaust would still hang and probably wouldn’t be at risk of falling off, it jiggled. It looked very “rice.” That was the last thing I wanted. So, I rigged up a new hanger using a strip of conveyor belt and a bolt.
I poked a hole in the belt and then bolted it into a screw hole I tapped into the undercarriage of the car. Oddly enough, there were three screw holes right above the muffler already, but I didn’t have a screw to fit them, so I just re-tapped one of the ones that was already there so I could fit a bolt into it. Once I had mounted the final exhaust hanger, the whole system worked perfectly.
Final Appearance:
I am very pleased with the final appearance. The tip is just slightly bigger than I would like, but I can deal with it. I'm very happy with the polished finish and the tastful bit of bling it adds to the car.
Sound:
Well, I’d have to say that the sound is about perfect. Sometimes, I wish it were a bit louder, but then I remember that it’s probably much louder behind me than it is while driving. The fact is, you can hardly hear the increase in volume while inside the car. That’s perfect. From the outside, the exhaust is noticeably louder, though probably only by a few decibels. The most significant change is the tone of the new system. It is just sexy. It sounds much more aggressive and “deep” (I never knew what that meant, til I heard it on my own car). Really, I’ll just let the video speak for itself.
Video:
In the video, I put the stock exhaust footage back to back with the GReddy footage for each specific shot.
1st shot: Cruising at 35mph in 3rd gear – Inside Car
Stock
GReddy
2nd shot: 2nd gear roll from 2k to redline – Inside Car
Stock
GReddy
3rd shot: 2nd gear roll from 2k to redline – Drive by
Stock
GReddy
4th shot: Cruising at 35mph in 3rd gear then blip a downshift to 2nd – Drive by
Stock
GReddy
5th shot: Light reving of the motor from behind
Stock
GReddy
6th shot: 6k rpm rev from behind
Stock
Greddy
7th shot: No muffler 4k rev
Link:
The Video on Putfile
I'll post one up on Google video tomorrow or something. It's getting late and the internet is running slow tonight.
GReddy Evo2 Sedan Exhaust Review + Video
