Hello everyone. I recently installed a Fujitsubo Authorize R catback exhaust on my BRZ and thought I would share my short blog post about it with you guys.
Fujitsubo Authorize R Catback
Well I’ve finally gotten around to it. I know, I know, it’s long overdue. A new exhaust seems to be pretty much the first thing that everyone does these days, but autocross necessitated some other modifications first. Also, to be perfectly honest, I was a bit hesitant. I feel like the odd-one-out in the car scene, because unlike most folks, I don’t want a super loud exhaust on my car. If it was a weekend/track car, that would be one thing, but this is my daily driver, and I put almost 20,000 miles on it a year, so I still want it to be tolerable around town, and not annoying on long road trips. My criteria were as follows:
- No tinny, raspy, metallic “fartcan” sound (AKA Honda Civic w/ AutoZone muffler.)
- Quiet at idle (I don’t want my car vibrating people’s skulls when it’s just sitting around.)
- No drone at ANY speed.
- More low frequency sound, as the current exhaust lacks any sort of deep sound.
- Ideally relatively quiet when tooling around, and louder but not in-your-face when accelerating.
With those being my criteria, and also trying to keep with the theme of the car of being a bit “different,” I started looking at some possible systems. I more-or-less dismissed systems such as the Invidia N1/Q300, HKS Legamax, etc… simply because everyone and their mother runs them. I then discovered Dezod Motorsports, and found their exhaust to be quite interesting, but it seemed as though it might be a bit loud for my tastes (I’d heard that with headers – an eventual modification I want to do – it could become particularly loud.)
In any event, I was eventually made aware of Fujitsubo… a company I admittedly hadn’t even heard of. I had to do some research but the only feedback I found was things like, “they’re one of the best exhausts you can buy,” and raving about the build quality, sound quality, etc… Also, many Fujitsubo exhausts are JASMA approved (Japan Automotive Sports Muffler Association). That means they have to meet some noise regulations (94-98 dB or such – there were some discrepancies on various forums.) All things considered, this sounded like the best bet to meet all of my requirements, so I went ahead and purchased the Fujitsubo Authorize R catback system.
Before I go any further, let’s quantify the things that people will want quantified. These numbers are not from any tests I have done, but straight from Fujitsubo’s site, so keep that in mind (for example, I’m not sure where they got 98 dB from, since it doesn’t sound anywhere near that loud…)
Performance
HP: 174.1 @ 6580 RPM -> 177.6 @ 6520 RPM (+3.5)
TQ: 144.0 @ 6190 RPM -> 146.3 @ 6110 RPM (+2.3)
Weight: 41.0 LB -> 33.7 lb (-7.3)
Sound
Idle: 61 dB -> 65 dB
3000 RPM: 73 dB -> 81 dB
5000 RPM: 80 dB -> 84 dB
Max: 87 dB -> 98 dB
So, this isn’t going to uncork a TON of power on its own (though it will allow the car to breathe better with other power mods down the road). It also appears to perfectly meet my noise criteria as well: not much louder at idle, but still willing to make some noise when you get on it!
Arrival
The exhaust arrived well-packaged in a rather large, and fairly sturdy box plastered with “FRAGILE!” stickers for good measure. The mid-pipe, y-pipe, and axle-back were wrapped in plastic, and everything was cushioned in expanding foam blocks. The hardware came shrink-wrapped on cardboard (nicely organized, though a bit of a pain-in-the-butt to unwrap.)
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