UEL Headers by themselves?
 

Hello! Just bought my 2013 FR-S about 2 weeks ago, already am starting to dislike how quiet the current exhaust setup is, so I want to give it a teeeeeny tiny bit more oomph.

I'm fairly new to modding as well so I had a few questions. I don't really want to dump too much money into the exhaust system so I figured I was just going to get Tomei UEL headers and leave the rest of the exhaust stock for now. Is this recommended? To my knowledge the majority of the performance gains would be coming from the headers anyway, and doing this would bring the subie rumble to life, which would really be sufficient as far as sound goes. Do I need a catback as well to even notice a difference? Thanks in advance!

Do also ecu tune, for more gains out of aftermarket header & to disable cat readiness checks to not throw CEL (as i guess you mentioned header is catless, right?).

The Tomei uel header is catless.

I'd recommend a tune with it.

PM me to order.

Always combine header and tune if you can afford it.

Hello Diamond and welcome to our forum …. :clap:

Have you considered just a simple cat back or axle back muffler .. ??

That would give you some more sound and it would sound like your car has more oomph.

That way you're not messing with the smog control stuff on the car and you wouldn't need a tune.


humfrz

Seems like your main concern is sound.
- I can attest to you that with just Header and stock everything else, you will notice a difference when accelerating and on heavy throttle. Won't be loud, but will have that rumble.
- During light throttle, you can still tell it's there but it's quiet and most non-car people will not be able to tell.
- During warm idling, you will not be able to notice anything.

There are various sound clips on Youtube of UEL & stock exhaust. :D

BTW, I would also agree to get a tune with it. If cost is your concern, You can grab an OFT used for $400 on the sale section. Someone also sold a used Tomei UEL for $450 recently, so you can expect somewhere between 450-700 used for a UEL.

I was running a UEL with and without a ECU tune and stock exhaust. Running the UEL without the tune I would get a CEL every so often and get backfires every time I shifted to 3rd gear. With the tune, the car felt way way more responsive and the exhaust noise was the same. Either way, if you're running the stock exhaust, you won't hear it unless you get on it.

Get a muffler delete. No hp/tq gains but cheap and easy. Not super loud unless you get on it.

I originally installed a JDL UEL catless header, 2.5" OP, and a catted & resonated FP with the stock catback. In my opinion, a catless header + stock catback sounds a bit farty.