TRD300 Project (Pic Heavy)
 

A month or so ago I was pumping gas after doing a little spirited driving and I look over to see a Firestorm FR-S make a turn and go WOT right by me. I made a note of A) How much better his car sounded than mine and B) Two little D-shaped exhaust tips sitting in his bumper. I decided that if I had the chance I'd upgrade to the TRD cat back.
:burnrubber:


THE VERY NEXT DAY I get a response to one of my craigslist ads saying that they had a TRD muffler to trade. We make arrangements and I end up with...


http://i66.tinypic.com/10dcnwx.jpg

This... Ok, no mid pipe, but I figured I could work around that. The worst part....

http://i63.tinypic.com/2m3fy2v.jpg

The guy chopped the hangers off! I don't understand the mentality of "Let me hack up this thousand dollar factor option instead of popping it out of the hangers!" but it happened. :thumbdown:

http://i65.tinypic.com/5peady.jpg

Oh yeah, he chopped off the mid pipe too! But hey, that makes my job a LITTLE easier. The quest begins!

So I order some stainless exhaust hangers from Summit

http://i63.tinypic.com/2u4iqah.jpg

And then bent them, torch style.

http://i68.tinypic.com/2itkj95.jpg

I still needed a mid pipe. They do not sell the TRD mid pipe separately so I had to do a bit of research. I noticed that the Invidia Q300 has a mid pipe that enters the muffler very much like the TRD....but again, they don't sell the mid pipe separately and I wasn't about the buy the whole kit. Luckily for me another member on the forum was selling the Q300 mid pipe and the Invidia front pipe for a good price. For about $300 shipped I had what I needed to move this project along. :thumbup:

Welded on and test fit

http://i63.tinypic.com/2ludgrq.jpg

http://i67.tinypic.com/358noed.jpg

Ok...bit of a gap here...

After a bit of brainstorming I came up with this

http://i68.tinypic.com/ra0s1x.jpg

4" long Vibrant Performance flexy bit.

And after a bit of toiling I ended up with...

http://i66.tinypic.com/2cq0bco.jpg

Install checklist:
TRD Muffler - Free
Exhaust hangers - $30
Invidia Front and Midpipe - $300
Resisted the urge to install the front pipe and instead sold it - +$150
Vibrant Performance flex joint - $30
Total: ~$210

:thanks:

Here's an amazingly high quality (rushed before work unfocused cell phone quality!) cold start and rev video.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5KhfR6jcwQ"]TRD300 Cold Start - YouTube[/ame]

And look at that clearance!

http://i67.tinypic.com/5bzm1g.jpg

I'm very happy with the result. It sounds worlds different, with a much deeper tone at idle and lower revs while not adding more volume than stock. I believe it may be more quiet than the standard TRD cat back with the quite large Invidia resonator, but who knows.

I believe this is the right forum for this post as it's not quite a DIY, but move it if need be. Just thought I'd share my little experiment and maybe inspire some of you to go out and make stuff happen. :party0038:

Nice work and way to be resourceful! Sounds great.