Whats the performance difference between a Catted X-Pipe & an Off Road X-Pipe for a 99 to 04?? What about the sound of an Off road pipe! Is it significantly louder then a catted one?? Too Loud while cruising?? Anybody have an opinion on Magnaflow vs Bassani! I think the best sounding combo I've heard on these year Mustangs was a Bassani X-Pipe and Magnaflow Magnapak Exhaust together but that car had cats on it too!
Don't bother with the no cat. It will drone and it's considerabley louder. The new high flow cats these days don't hinder performance at all. The only x-pipe I bother spending money on is the Bassani stainless x-pipe with two stanless cats. There is no need to spend money on anythin else.
+1 I have some video/sound clips of my new exhaust setup, but it just doesn't do it justice. I had the opportunity to get a Bassani off-road X-pipe and a lot of people gave me the same response Marcus did...considerably louder. I went with the catalytic X-pipe more for inspection reasons. I don't feel like swapping in the stock H-pipe before the inspection and then swapping back to the X-pipe afterwards. I think the biggest factor is price...the catalytic X-pipe is a bit more than the off-road version. I just happened to come across a great deal.
When you drop the cats, regardless of the muffler set-up & midpipe, you will get a less-deep tone. I've bounced all over the place with various set-ups and questioned many people on their set-ups and it seems that the cars I tend to like the most have high-flow cats. What really tends to make a difference in sound and will allow you to keep your car legal (in some states) are some longtube headers, catted h-pipe, and some Magnaflow mufflers. The cars with the most muscle-sounding exhausts tend to have a similar set-up IMO. An O/R X of H-pipe tends to sound rather raspy until you are wide open in the mid to upper RPM range. Not that they don't sound good, but it is a different kind of sound good. I'm currently running an O/R X-pipe with Magnaflows and it sounds pretty mean....until I hear someone with some JBA longtubes, JBA highflow catted midpipe, and some JBA mufflers at which point it sounds like my car is falling apart in comparison.
Ha ha. Yea, he made it sound serious because we have smog nazis out here in Los Angeles. We even have random stops on highways sometimes and a mobile sniffer is there to test the tailpipe. He he.
Ditto on what Marcus said. When I replaced the factory 4 cat H-pipe on my '89 Saleen I could have chosen either an off-road or a catted pipe as I was not living in a smog inspection state @ the time. However, I chose the latter version because I wanted the car to remain smog legal in case inspections became an issue & also because I thought it was the right thing to do. Good thing, too, because even with the cats the car failed the visual inspection when I returned to San Diego & I had to research the CARB website to find the applicable EO's that allows a 5.0 Mustang to replace 4 cats with 2 cats.
I wouldn't pass up that deal.... if your worried about being too loud.. I have heard the mac pro chamber is not as raspy.. lower tone... here in ontario we just have the e-test every other year... so I just have to rebolt my old h back up...
I briefly tried a VRS off road X on my 99 Saleen. Pulled it off after a week, it droned so bad it gave me a headache. I currently have a Magnaflow X with cats along with the Borla's and it sound good when you hit the loud pedal and reasonable the rest of the time.
My car has a BBK O/R X-pipe, with 40 Flow Masters. It was way too loud, and raspy for my taste. It is in the shop right now having some Magnaflow Cats welded in, and I am replacing the Flowmasters with Magnaflows. I think this will give me what I want as far as that low toned, muscle car sound.
Off roads tend to make the exhaust "rattle" more than I would like, -hi-flow cats are the way to go, sound and performance.
My brother owns an '04 Gt with a vortech supercharger. His car made 366rwhp with the original cat pipe. We swapped it for a UPR Offroad x- pipe and put it back on the dyno. It then made 384rwhp. Not too bad for $159 bucks. That offroad X along with the flowmaster catback sounds pretty nice. Very raspy. "He likes it" Funny thing, His birthday was last month and the damn thing passed emmisions. They didn't do a visual but it burned clean enough I guess. I put an offroad H-pipe on my SSC breifly to see how I liked it. I had it laying in the shop so I figured "what the heck".I didn't put it on the dyno but the pedal response and power increase was outstanding. BUT, it was way too loud , and the drone inside my car was too much for me so I put my Bassani catted X-pipe back on. I highly recomend the Bassani catted X. Great sound with respectable power increase over stock.
Why does it smell??? and i bought a o/r x-pipe and it hasn't come in yet. if i think its too loud would it work it i brought it somewhere and had them put cats in it?? or would that just F** things up??
you can add cats to an offroad pipe if you want to. wont do much more then quiet it down and get rid of most of the fuel smell. I only smell fuel in my car with hte o/r bbk H if I let it idle for a while and then I back up into it...i never just randomly smell it
