Just thought I'd share my new cat-back exhaust fabbed by Greg at Mandrel Bending Solutions in MD. This is nothing fancy but it sounds great and flows better than oem. Greg cut the oem 1.75" pipe just after the first cat and ran 2" 16ga aluminized pipe back to a turbo muffler and polished 304SS tip and removed all the loose heat shields. Not bad for only $200. 409SS and mandrel bends would cost more, of course.
reddragons wrote:wow. looks good for only 200 bones!
Thanks! If you like their economy grade work you should see their premium work! I'll never buy another poor-fitting, crappy sounding aftermarket exhaust system again when MBS is less than 30 minutes away from me. I'll try to post a sound clip soon so you can hear how good it sounds. It's pretty quiet but that's what I wanted.
Thanks! The muffler looks a little tilted in my crappy cell-phone photo but it's actually level and the tip is centered.
I actually have a different muffler on it now but forgot to take any pics. It's basically the same size and shape but sounds better. When Greg originally did the work he suggested the muffler in the photo but it was too loud for my taste. To my surprise he replaced the muffler for free! Not only did I save over $200 vs buying replacement parts and installing them myself, MBS even warrantied the sound quality!
I posted this primarily for two reasons:
1) To plug a really great custom exhaust shop for anyone in the Balt/Was area
2) To share my recently discovered knowledge that it's often cheaper to have a custom exhaust system fabbed by a good shop than to buy replacement or aftermarket exhaust pieces and install them yourself.
Last edited by SubaruFred on Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
SubaruFred wrote:2) To share my recently discovered knowledge that it's cheaper to have a custom exhaust system fabbed by a good shop than to buy replacement or aftermarket exhaust pieces and install them yourself.
This will likely vary depending on the shop and replacement/aftermarket pieces.
I've run across some shops that are ridiculously priced.
SubaruFred wrote:2) To share my recently discovered knowledge that it's cheaper to have a custom exhaust system fabbed by a good shop than to buy replacement or aftermarket exhaust pieces and install them yourself.
This will likely vary depending on the shop and replacement/aftermarket pieces.
I've run across some shops that are ridiculously priced.
Good point. It's always best to shop around and compare prices. I should also note that I deleted the second cat which saved $50 vs buying replacement pipes.