Well guys, I did it. I went out last weekend to Carboy in Houston and I had my car Dyno tested first. Then I had the exhaust installed and ran another two Dyno tests on it right after. The install and 2 seperate dyno tests costed me $160 and the whole process took no longer than 2 hours. I have the printout of the Dyno results, but I have not had a chance to post it yet. I will post it soon because this thread is worthless until I do so. But after reading the other review, I felt I had to post something as well while I was at work.

My initial thoughts....

The tail pipes are way bigger in real life than what I saw in the pictures. It is obvious that you are not rolling stock. When you first start your car, the exhaust roars and holds a nice tone.

My girlfriend is really against loud exhausts and in her opinion, it was not too loud at all.

There was no droning on the highway, in fact, it is pretty quiet on the highway if you maintain a cruising speed. Around 1500-2000 RPM, the exhaust caused the change (quarters, pennies, etc) I had in my cup holder to vibrate and make a tinny noise. After removing the change, most of this resonating vibration sound went away. I can definately see how this exhaust may cause vibrations in your car. I have a subwoofer and the combination of both definately increases the likelihood for future vibrations. This concerns me in the event I choose to resell my car.

As for the sound, I absolutely love it. There is enough sound to know that there is something there at all times. If you ever go into WOT, which I rarely do, the car makes a very aggressive throaty sound. It is absolutely music to my ears. This exhaust is everything that I was hoping it to be and more. Others say that there is no difference in performance, but I actually can feel a difference.

The car pulls a lot more throughout the RPM band. It holds gears just a little longer it seems. I also get the impression that my gas pedal feels lighter. Like it requires less effort to produce the same amount of acceleration that I used to have to use.

I dyno tested my car in snow mode with the traction off. The time between runs was approximately an hour. 10:30 AM for the first run, and 11:30 AM for the second run. I along with the technicians at CARBOY, were very surprised with the results of the dyno.

the gains from two SAE adjusted runs were as follows:

HP gain: 11.6
Torque: 9

pretty unbelievable right? Like I said I can feel the difference and it is more than subtle. I will post the results tonite if I am not too lazy.

 

here they are, i dont have the best scanner so I appologize ahead of time. Will get files saturday at best.

 

nice looking forward to this

 

thanks for the great review, waiting for the the dyno posts, post some pics too

 

eeh very nice, i like..

were you looking at some different exhausts, and of so why did you pick this one

 

I was looking at the Tanabe, and the HKS from Lexus. I was hesitant to buy the Tanabe, because I was afraid that it would be too quiet for what I was looking for. THE Lexus HKS was very pricey for a bolt on exhaust in my opinion. I rolled the dice and hoped that HKS would release their own at a reasonable price. I figured there was not much downside to buying a $575 exhaust. If i had to resell it, I would be out $100 at the most I figured, aside from Dyno and install.

I chose HKS because I loved the way Jinetix's Ti exhaust sounded and I was very happy with the way the Lexus HKS sounded. I have always been a fan of HKS since the early 90s and I decided to lift the HKS exhaust.

 

Thanks for the testing and review. What dyno did the shop have? If it was a DynoJet, did you get copies of the dyno files (DRF format)?

 

hey jiggawatt - you must be in h town. i called carboy for estimate on install of same exhaust but they quoted me almost $100

so i am taking mine to midas for less than half the price.

is yours just modded for exhuast only?

i have the same HKS on order now but will also be installing the fujita intake in addition.

i want to do them separately so i can tell how much diff each component makes.

 

Carboy uses a Dyno Jet, they have my files stored on their computer, but my silly butt forgot to bring a disk. I was so excited. I had a jump drive on me, but their old computer did not have a USB port. I left my old exhaust at the shop and when I go back to get it, they said they will give me the files if I bring a disk. They gave me a printout though of the before and after results posted on the same graph. I will most likely just post a scanned version of that until I get a buddy with a truck to help me get my old exhaust.

www.carboyracing.com

The owner is Jackie, he can confirm any results if you like. I was only expecting 3hp and 3 torque to be honest.

 

Thats a good Idea to get them installed seperately, although you may get a better price if you get them done together.

I have been going to Carboy for a while, so I might have been given a special price. They did a lot of stuff on my old E46. Tell Jackie that Richard IS350 sent you and he may do better. I have sent him a decent amount of business lately.

 

The DRF files just make it easy to verify at least part of their testing methods (same gear each time, SAE correction factors, climate stats, etc.).

 

There is a downside to installing all the mods separately. If you do several mods over time that each add 5 rwhp, you probably won't notice any difference. However, if you install those same mods all at once, and they all add up to 20 rwhp, you'll actually notice it.

 

One question Hks makes the hipers in titanium carbon fiber wrap?

 

HKS doesn't offer a bolt-on carbon Ti unit for our cars, but there is a member on this forum that had his OEM mufflers replaced with carbon Ti HKS mufflers.

 

11hp to the wheel is pretty nice