Quiet Headers?
 

I'm thinking on buying a header for my car, but all of my friends with headers have particularly loud cars. I like loud cars for the track or whenever I go full throttle. But I don't like a loud car the rest of the time.

As a backstory, I used to have an invidia N1 on my car, without the silencer caps on it, it would wake up every car alarm in the apartment building's garage. With the silencer caps only 2 or 3. I managed to reduce it to 0 when I changed my N1 for the Q300.

Afterwards I changed my OEM frontpipe to a invidia catted frontpipe (noise didn't change much), and same with the overpipe, not much of a difference in sound. Even after I added ECUTek and the car's warm up idle is up at 2000+ rpm

Now I'm looking into getting a header, and I want a quiet one. I've heard that if I stick to catted headers the car will still be quiet. Is this true? Anyone have speedfactory's catted header?

Any suggestions for headers? I would prefer UEL because it delivers more torque at lower rpm, but I'm willing to go EL if it means a quieter exhaust at idle and low rpms.

this is my # 1 reason i didn't go headers yet. i wish there were quiet headers but as far as i know that just the stock factory headers

@OnionTou & @akash_

Sooo... The stock header only sucks vs. aftermarket because it has a standard cat. And we know that the stock EL header is quieter than an aftermarket one, but why? Well it's because...

1. The stock cat is denser than an aftermarket high-flow cat
2. The stock header is made from thicker metal than an aftermarket header
3. The stock header retains both top and bottom heat shields

Easiest way to get the best of both worlds would be to either:
1. Gut the cat in the stock header and optionally have a muffler shop weld in a straight pipe
2. Cut off the stock cat and have a muffler shop weld in a straight pipe

The stock EL header is actually a pretty decent piece. People that have removed the stock cat from the stock header report equal gains to an aftermarket catless header.

The other benefit of doing this is that you can't tell any modifications have been done afterwards (because the stock heat shield is covering everything). So you don't have to worry about passing a visual inspection.

Read here:
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55770

Stock header also have too short runners till cat, +their inner diameter is less then that of average aftermarket's. I somewhat predict that having both very same cats but in frontpipe would give extra +10whp for stock headers, just that due them being further, where exhaust gases are colder, they would heat up slower, reducing claimed smog level figures, at least for cold starts.

In order to keep the exhaust quiet with headers, the rest of the exhaust has to be as quiet as possible. With what you have now, you will probably have to go with an even quieter muffler and add a resonator to the front pipe and add a super quiet resonator to the midpipe too.

Ft86speedfactory catted header is a pretty quiet header. Car is just a bit throatier, but not louder really.

Ft86speedfactory uel header, op, catless ft and q300 is not loud. It won't really change loudness, but only rumble comes alive.
I just took off ft86 sf catted uel yesterday.
I have it for sale if you are interested pm me.

I just put in a set of JDL UEL headers with an otherwise stock exhaust and I have to say that I am actually impressed by how quiet the system is. I was expecting a lot more of the racey open exhaust sound which personally is less desirable for my daily.

It's got that UEL rumble for sure, but the swap didn't seem to add any rasp, drone, or really a whole lot of sound out of the tailpipe under normal driving conditions. When you get on it you can definitely tell the difference from stock, but I think it will not attract unwanted attention.

Personal thoughts:
I feel like the rest of the exhaust flows pretty well(headers were the first/largest bottleneck) for a moderately tuned NA car. My feeling is that the other modifications you make to the exhaust system AFTER a header swap mostly just affect the sound, i.e. loudness. That said, choose your catbacks and over/mid pipes for the sound they make and the headers for the power band you desire. Oh, and resonators are key in helping to quiet a system down.

:burnrubber:

Catted UEL. See what the consensus is, but aside from the chugging UEL tone the volume shouldn't be that much greater.

I have a catted el header, a catted and resonated front / over pipe, and the stock catback. Its definitely not loud, however it doesn't have that 'good free flow exhaust' sound.

I completely agree with this. after the borla UEl install, I really didn't notice much of a sound difference except for WOT. Don't worry too much about the noise if you are staying stock with the rest of the exhaust. :w00t:

The JDL catted EL with a catted front pipe and perrin resonated exhaust isn't loud either. Cold start will probably be a tiny bit louder than before swapping the header, but not by much.

Q300 is quieter than the perrin resonated, so you *should* be ok with a good catted header.

Not to thread jack, but does anyone have any experience with a TRD cutback exhaust and a uel header combination that's quiet?

Sent from my D6616 using Tapatalk

NOB Q. If gut cat from stock header, does that trigger a CEL code ?