So I put on my STI exhaust but...

[MoclovFlop]

I think I got screwed. I'm pretty sure the muffler is shot. It sounds really tinny when accelerating, almost as thought there is a loose baffle or something. Has anyone run into this before with a stock STI cat back? Any way to fix it? (I.e, jab a pole in there to remove the baffles? haha) I'm pretty freaking bummed, I spent all that time getting it to work right, and it sounds like shit. Although it sounds really awesome at cruising speeds, and I can tell it would sound amazing with out that sound when accelerating.

I guess on the bright side, I don't have a CEL with my single "high flow" cat.

Think I should just look for a new STI axel back?

It does look good though...

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l168/cushmand/car012.jpg

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l168/cushmand/car011.jpg

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2007/11/car014-1.jpg

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2007/11/car013-1.jpg

[JMoney]

I've got a WRX car back that you could hack up for the muffler sitting in my garage. Make me an offer and we can meet up if you're interested.

[MoclovFlop]

What year? And has it ever been confirmed that they have the same pipe diameter and internal setup on the 05+ WRX's as STI?

[Reason]

Your problem is you have a stock STi muffler. It's a stock muffler on a high flow system, it sounds like crap. I don't understand why Legacy owners have wet dreams about this muffler. I never heard a decent sound clip. Get a Borla, Stroumng or a flowmaster, and it will sound 10 times better than that POS (no offense).

[MoclovFlop]

Haha, wow. The reason I got this is specifically because i HAVE heard nice sound clips from it. I asked the people what they did, and I mimicked it. (plus it's a cheap alternative to those you mentioned). I don't understand your comment that "it's a stock muffler on a high flow system", I put high flow in quotes in my original post because the cat isn't really high flow, just a little better than stock. Maybe I should put my stock dual cat setup back on, but I really do feel that the problem is the muffler. I will take you comments into thought though, Reason. thank you for your input.

[d1giPhux]

^ Really?... I've never heard many good sound clips of it either. All the ones I've heard are like how you describe it.. tinny sounding. Almost reminds me of the 'honda buzz'. Thats why i went with the SPT muffler on my car personally.. and it sounds great. Hopefully you can get it sorted out! Looks nice tho! Did you just put it on yourself? You did right? So at least u hopefully didnt spend additional $ on that. Hmm.. :-?

[MCarp22]

I really do feel that the problem is the muffler.

Disconnect muffler. Still tinny? Not the muffler. Tinny? Replace muffler.

[Plays_with_Toys]

The STi muffler is almost completely straight through. The baffles and such are actually above the pipe that leads from the inlet to the outlet. Shine a flashlight down there and you'll see what I mean. Did you get this off of awdpirates? I remember there was a for sale thread and he said it had bad baffles.

And reason, how do you figure that a naturally aspirated 2.5 liter motor is flowing more exhaust than a turbocharged 2.5 liter exactly?

[rougeben83]

First time I've heard a Borla described as a "hi-flow" setup :wink: :lol:

All the straight thru mufflers will add is volume to the sound. As in it'll be louder. Sorry, I don't equate power to how loud an exhaust is; if that's the case all those Honda's with $25 fartcans are F1 cars.

If you want to attenuate the tone of the exhaust you'll need to add a resonator. The longer the resonator, the lower the pitch of the exhaust, and you will "enhance" the "blub blub blub" of the Borla headers.

Can you described the "tiny" sound further? What is it that doesn't sound right exactly? Too quiet, too high pitch, rattling, etc?

[auspex]

Hey, Reason -

I know you are a the straight forward, no bullshit guy on this site - But it's not necessary to act like a prick in the process. The guy is asking a question, trying to get some help from his friends on this site, no need for you to tell him his system is crap. Not productive AT ALL and a bit hostile.

I have an STi muffler and I not only think it sounds mean, but get a lot of comments on it, so......

Back on topic I have no idea what's wrong... :grin:

-mike

[MoclovFlop]

First time I've heard a Borla described as a "hi-flow" setup :wink: :lol:

All the straight thru mufflers will add is volume to the sound. As in it'll be louder. Sorry, I don't equate power to how loud an exhaust is; if that's the case all those Honda's with $25 fartcans are F1 cars.

If you want to attenuate the tone of the exhaust you'll need to add a resonator. The longer the resonator, the lower the pitch of the exhaust, and you will "enhance" the "blub blub blub" of the Borla headers.

Can you described the "tiny" sound further? What is it that doesn't sound right exactly? Too quiet, too high pitch, rattling, etc?

I know sound doesn't equal power, that's why I got the STi setup, because I was hoping for a nice exhaust note and tone, not something loud and obnoxious. I used the stock STI catback, so that included the resonator in the midpipe, and like I said if the tinny sound wasn't there I can tell it would sound awesome. As far as the sound....it's like theres a loose baffle in there; almost like something's rattling at a high frequency. When I step on the gas it just sounds like a F1 car. Kind of hard to explain, but it reminds me of a Honda.

Plays_with_toys: Yea, I got it from AWDpirates, but the guy never said anything about it being borked, He just couldn't use it because he needed an over the axle type system. It was the guy with the Yellow XT.

[Reason]

Hey, Reason -

I know you are a the straight forward, no bullshit guy on this site - But it's not necessary to act like a prick in the process. The guy is asking a question, trying to get some help from his friends on this site, no need for you to tell him his system is crap. Not productive AT ALL and a bit hostile.

I have an STi muffler and I not only think it sounds mean, but get a lot of comments on it, so......

Back on topic I have no idea what's wrong... :grin:

-mike

Moclovflop is a big boy, he can stick up for himself. I already explained to him what I was trying to say. If you have any issues with how post PM me and we can do so. This is not the place for it. Shit make a thread in OT and tell me how much of an asshole I am, I'll get a kick out of that.

My post wasn't meant to be disrespectful and he knows that. I'm sorry my posts aren't full of smiley faces, love and sunshine.

EDIT: Just to clear one thing up, when I said POS it was towards the STi muffler. I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings that have that muffler. I don't think that's the muffler to go with to get a good sound.

[Rockgod]

My two cents on this is...Don't get a Flowmaster muffler. I speak from experience. I don't know about sound laws in your state but if you don't want to generate seismic readings.... get a Borla, Stromung or Magnaflow. Say No to Flowmaster. Greddy, I have been told is a good buy also but expensive.

[rougeben83]

First time I've heard a Borla described as a "hi-flow" setup :wink: :lol:

All the straight thru mufflers will add is volume to the sound. As in it'll be louder. Sorry, I don't equate power to how loud an exhaust is; if that's the case all those Honda's with $25 fartcans are F1 cars.

If you want to attenuate the tone of the exhaust you'll need to add a resonator. The longer the resonator, the lower the pitch of the exhaust, and you will "enhance" the "blub blub blub" of the Borla headers.

Can you described the "tiny" sound further? What is it that doesn't sound right exactly? Too quiet, too high pitch, rattling, etc?

I know sound doesn't equal power, that's why I got the STi setup, because I was hoping for a nice exhaust note and tone, not something loud and obnoxious. I used the stock STI catback, so that included the resonator in the midpipe, and like I said if the tinny sound wasn't there I can tell it would sound awesome. As far as the sound....it's like theres a loose baffle in there; almost like something's rattling at a high frequency. When I step on the gas it just sounds like a F1 car. Kind of hard to explain, but it reminds me of a Honda.

Plays_with_toys: Yea, I got it from AWDpirates, but the guy never said anything about it being borked, He just couldn't use it because he needed an over the axle type system. It was the guy with the Yellow XT.

Rattling at high frequency more likely means you're getting some resonance in the cabin at certain RPM's. It's a more common problem in wagons since there's a big open space right above the muffler, sort of acting as an amplifier to the sound. It's just the way the frequency put out by the muffler sorta harmonizes with the frequency of the steel around it and you get that sort of vibration. It's a problem with a lot of home-brewed exhaust systems and the factory does spend a lot of R&D time and money changing little things in the exhaust system to make sure this doesn't happen on a stock exhaust system across the revband.

The most cost-effective fit is to get a bigger resonator. The stock sti resonator is small; it doesn't need to be big because the turbo acts as another muffler to quiet the exhaust note down.

I have a 20" long resonator on mine.

I would also go underneath the car and make sure the exhaust isn't rubbing up against any other part of the car, and to check for exhaust leaks. I had a similar sort of vibrating/rattling noise when I first got mine and it turned out to be a bad weld that cracked.

Those three are pretty much the most common problems that comes to those kinds of extraneous noises.

[Jedi Taxi]

well, you could always find a SPT/ bosal muffler. Then again, i prefer bosal mufflers, may as well be their spokesman. They made an 2.0L eclipse sound not rice, that takes enginuity. If you want a universal muffler, they make that too, good design and all. Just not popular here in the states, mostly in germany.

[battman]

Wow, I have an STI muffler and I like how it sounds. Yeah, just my two cents.

[MoclovFlop]

Rattling at high frequency more likely means you're getting some resonance in the cabin at certain RPM's. It's a more common problem in wagons since there's a big open space right above the muffler, sort of acting as an amplifier to the sound. It's just the way the frequency put out by the muffler sorta harmonizes with the frequency of the steel around it and you get that sort of vibration. It's a problem with a lot of home-brewed exhaust systems and the factory does spend a lot of R&D time and money changing little things in the exhaust system to make sure this doesn't happen on a stock exhaust system across the revband.

The most cost-effective fit is to get a bigger resonator. The stock sti resonator is small; it doesn't need to be big because the turbo acts as another muffler to quiet the exhaust note down.

I have a 20" long resonator on mine.

I would also go underneath the car and make sure the exhaust isn't rubbing up against any other part of the car, and to check for exhaust leaks. I had a similar sort of vibrating/rattling noise when I first got mine and it turned out to be a bad weld that cracked.

Those three are pretty much the most common problems that comes to those kinds of extraneous noises.

It's not a rattling in the car, it's a "rattling" in the mufler. If you stand outside and rev it you can hear it too. Like I said, it almost has a honda-ish sound, It's more like a raspy sound....I'll just have to put a sound clip up so there's no more confusion. I know it doesn't help that I can't explain the sound, but that's near impossible.

I thought about a larger resonator, that may be a good option.

Also, I know it's not hitting anything under the car, that was the first thing we checked.

I plan on just buying a new muffler in the near future, but before that I'm going to try a couple things with the STi one just to test a few things out.

[SammyDaFish]

I have an STI cat back on my wagon. I'm not running any cats, so it probably sounds a little different. It's pretty loud, louder than I'd like and I know what you mean by the raspyness/rattle sound. I've been wanting to make a sound clip of my car for a while. Maybe I'll just need to break down and do it. The car does not have the same throaty deep sound that a wrx or sti has. I hope that it will have that sound once I install the turbo motor I have sitting on an engine stand here. Without the turbo though it does have a bit of a ricer feel though.

on another note it does look great :)

[MoclovFlop]

I've got some video I'll put up tonight. I took off the axle-back to see if I could tell what the problem was (ie if it was the muffler or something else). With it off, I could tell that the muffler has something to do with it, but I have a sneaking suspision that it is actually the generic high flow cat I have that is causeing the problem, in addition to a most-likely insuficient resonator. I say this because with the axle back off, I could tell it was still the same pitch, just amplified. But I say the muffler is probably contributing to the problem just as much as the other things. Overall... I think the whole thing aside from the headers sucks. Sweet.

I'll post the video tonight of the straight pipe, and then the video of the whole system.

Edit: here's the straight pipe:

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l168/cushmand/th_video001.jpg (http://s96.photobucket.com/albums/l168/cushmand/?action=view&current=video001.flv)

[SammyDaFish]

yup, that's just how mine sounds but it sounds like yours is louder, I'm on a 2.2 though so that might be the difference, plus those headers you have on might be adding to it. I have the stock manifold, no cats to an STi cat back. Yours reminds me of Brennan's rally car, that thing is ridiculously loud.

I'm thinking it's the header that's adding the most to your sound. Adding a resonator might make it more manageable, or do like I am and add a turbo :)

[MoclovFlop]

That's the straight pipe sound clip....just to show as a comparison to the next video i'm going to put up, but photobucket is being weird when I try to up load the second. That is not how the car is normally.

[MoclovFlop]

Here's the video, I finally got it uploaded. Since I shot this (about 2 or 3 weeks ago) it has mellowed out a little bit. Once the car is warm it sounds a tiny bit deeper when revved. Still, I am ultimately going to have to put something else on because it still doesn't sound like I want.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8301905459804502815

[Plays_with_Toys]

I heard the exhaust in person and it's really not that bad. It has a sort of hollow sound to it, but honestly right after Dan started his car and gave it a few revs, an STi further down at the car meet revved up and it sounded about the same.

[omahasubaru]

problem isn't the muffler.

it's because you're catless.

seriously.

[rougeben83]

You need a bigger resonator.

[MoclovFlop]

problem isn't the muffler.

it's because you're catless.

seriously.

I'm not catlless, I have a single cat. Seriously

And yea, I was thinking bigger resonator would help a lot, the STI one is puny. Thanks for the comments guys, I'll let you all know if I do something to fix it.