exhaust opinions
 

Currently I am running a Tomei UEL header, Drop in filter, Ark Grip Exhaust and OFT Stage 2 flash. I want some more power and was thinking of doing an over pipe and front pipe. That being said, this is my daily driver. I am the executive chef of a country club and have to drive my car thru the neighborhoods all the time. If I went full catless with my car, would it be so annoying that my members would complain? I was thinking of going tomei overpipe and the ark resonated front pipe. Anyone running something similar, or if anyone has a constructive opinion, I am all ears. I am just afraid of bothering golfers when they are tee'ing off and getting bitched at by my General Manager.


Thanks,
Tim

Yes, catless with be very loud. Mine shook the house and had my neighbors calling the cops on me. I didn't have the Ark exhaust but I'd imagine it would still be louder than you'd want. Also, the gains from an over pipe and front pipe are rather negligible.

Given the details of your job, I would not change the exhaust. I would go get a dyno tune and maybe look into a small turbo if you really want more power out of it.

The gains will be minimal with the fp/op. You would probably get more gains by tuning the tune.
Sad to say, but there is a double standard. If it was a lambo or ferrari, people wouldn't care. Since it is not, they WILL complain, and you will know.

Get a turbo, there's no better exhaust muffler. :cheers:

Hey Tim, drift office in washington has tuned about 8 different exhaust combinations with the tomei UEL, they've gotten between 189 and 192 regardless of fp/op used. I would suggest you keep the OP/FP stock for noise and get a dyno tune. I'll be installing a similar set up to yours shortly, tomei uel, perrin op, ark resonated fp and perrin 2.5 inch resonated cat back. as it stands the ark fp + perrin cat back makes a great noise but i know my shits about to get loud but i'm not concerned :)

or if you want more power and more quiet, do what sportsguy suggested :D

As far as tune, is there really more gains to be had than by running the stage 2 OFT tune from Shiv? As in, could someone do a better job of tuning it and if so, anyone know any shops in South Florida that can work with the OFT to get me more power. I was looking at the speed by design turbo. Its on sale for 3k. They claim 277hp on 93 octane. Only problem is my car has less than 20k miles on it, and if I turbo it, there is NO chance to keep my warranty. Up to this point, if I reflash back to stock with my OFT, I could argue if something did go wrong.

Yes. The canned OFT tunes are conservative to begin with, because they have to work with a wide variety of cars and locations and altitudes etc... without any modification to the tune. A custom tune for your vehicle will likely give you more power because it was done purely for the quirks your vehicle has in the environment you normally drive in. Plus, tuners can use the OFT to tune your car. I'd check with Shiv to see if he has any recommendations for tuners familiar with OFT in your area.


If you don't want to go FI for warranty reasons, you can also consider E85 fuel. The OFT has E85 maps available. E85 will get you more power at the expense of some gas mileage, but it's also cheaper than gasoline, so that offsets the cost. The only thing with OFT E85 maps vs. a flex-fuel system is that you need to get as much gas out of the tank as possible before you fill it with E85, whereas with a flex-fuel system the controller will determine the ethanol content and adjust the map accordingly. The only question is if it's available in your area.

Go high flow cat front pipe and swap that ark exhaust with a Q300. And also get a custom tune for the car. You'll get some more power from the retune and opening up the exhaust, and the q300 will let you keep the rumble but keep it at polite levels once it gets out of cold start.

K. Funny story. Have looked for E85 in my area before and the closest place was over a hour away. Now there is one about 15 minutes away. So SCORE!! I of course, just filled my tank up today. What are the exact steps I need to do to change to E85? Do I need to run my tank to empty? I have an OFT, UEl headers, drop in filter and cat back exhaust. Can I expect to see gains from running E85 and if so, how much? Why did I fill my tank up today? Anyway, if anyone can point me in the right direction, or answer any of the above questions, I would definitely appreciate it!!

Dig into the tuning forum; it's all in there. Also look at the tutorials in @steve99's signature block. I don't know more than the basic theory because E85 is not available to me so I don't run it.

It's pretty easy to switch from regular gasoline to E85 with the OFT. Simply just empty your gas tank or drive until the gas light comes on and fill up with E85. Once filled up, drive for maybe 2-3 miles depending on the amount of 93 octane you still have in your gas tank, then pull over and flash your OFT to the E85 map. Upon completion of the flash, drive your car gingerly for the next, give or take, 10 miles--this is to ensure that the ECU has time to adjust and calibrate the map to the E85 fuel. (I highly recommend driving on the highway or driving at some constant speed throughout the 10 miles, so that the ECU can adjust to the E85 quicker!) Boom, you're done!

Is E85 worth it? Nope unless you're a baller. You won't notice anything dramatic but you'll notice slightly more torque throughout the rev range. You can't make up for displacement with fuel, especially with the FA20.

Just wanted to chime in, I've been running E85 for the past couple weeks and it's definitely worth it if that place opened up near you. I drive about 15minutes to get to the only station in my area and it's definitely worth it.

E85+UEL Header+ Stage 2 OFT Tune will get around 205-210whp generally and completely eliminate ANY torque dip, which you will definitely feel and pull on similar cars without E85 :)

i dont think you need to be baller to get e85. People spend more on an exhaust than the tune for it. its cheaper at the pump but you use more of it so it basically evens out. and plus you get more power so i dont see any cons. It is dramatic if you spend 500 on e85 tune vs an intake an exhaust.

You're right, one doesn't have to be loaded to use E85. I guess I just think that for someone like myself, who daily drives the car more than driving aggressively, regular premium gasoline would be more idea--economically speaking. The last time I pumped E85, it went for around $2.15/g and regular premium octane (Costco Premium to be specific) went for around $2.50 so I couldn't justify spending a couple cents less for around ~200 mile range versus the 320 mileage I get from standard premium gasoline. To each their own, I guess. :)

without putting the car on the dyno with the OTS tune, how do you know where you're at compared to other dyno tuned cars. ;)

but from what i've seen, yes a custom for your car/mods tune will out perform and be more reliable/safe than some OTS tune.

also, if you want to play with FI, you need to be ready to pay for a full rebuild of the motor.

You don't, but butt dyno can possibly tell you if there's significant gains or losses, and logging on road tuning can tell you how well the tune is doing on your car.

Then again, if you are used to hot dogging corners, if you notice that driving the same, that you're breaking free way easier without changing how you take these regular corners, then you know your HP increased.

the butt dyno can lie or have false positives thanks to the placebo effect. I much prefer an actual dyno to show me gains. ;) but i'll agree, you can notice some gains with how the car performs in the same parameters as before.

I've also seen data logs from a couple different people who ran the OFT OTS tunes and they're not good or something i'd run on my car. In fact those people quickly ditched OFT for a custom tune using ecutek.

How on earth do you get 320 miles a tank on premium gasoline? I can only get 300 if I'm road-tripping. If I drive around town it's 250-275. Your premium gasoline must be better than my premium gasoline. :(

I drive pretty gingerly and conservatively haha. My usual commute is around ~60 miles round trip from work and back, and I do about 80% highway driving, which probably contributes to my slightly higher gas mileage number. In addition, I usually shift at around 3K to 3.5K and never go over 70 miles per hour. Surprisingly, getting 300 to 310 miles out of a full tank of gasoline is pretty standard for me haha. :)

Yes, b/c OTS tunes suck. Think of them as "limp mode" to get you to your tuner and around town for a time. They're safe but not ideal by a long chalk. They're a base line for the tuner to go off of and tune to your car.

i just hit 350 on my last tank and used a little over 11 gallons. the most miles was 385.80 miles and 12.775 gallons used, and my most efficient tank was 374.6 miles and 11.352 gallons used.

all statistics pulled from fuelly.com which is what i use to track my mileage.

OFT is a tune for everybody to use. its supposed to be conservative to take into consideration for all different types of mods, climates, altitude, and etc. It wont be able to squeeze every ounce of power out of your mods. Its a good tune for what it is.

I never looked into getting ecutek, how much is it total to get a custom tune?