Hello ladies and gentlemen. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, especially from the R crowd.

Thinking about pulling the trigger on the 200 cell along with the VAP tune. Should have done it on Black Friday, but the wifey had different ideas. Something about Christmas and a sweet 16th birthday for our daughter. So now I am thinking this will be a great 20th anniversary gift for her. Yup. I love her. The sound currently is great, but would not mind more theater. I don’t think I am ever going to grow up. lol.

After reading multiple post, it seems that opinions vary, some love it and some hate it. A lot of complaints about it being “raspy,” but most all of them are coming from the SVR crowd. Obviously the tune would also be an added benefit, but if anyone could share their thoughts, pros or cons would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
KJ

 

They are significantly louder, and your cracks and pops (early cars) can turn into gunshots mine is a 2015R and I wouldn't say it is overly raspy, but a good rev will blow your hair back. I do believe VAP does make them with resonators for the AWD cars.

 

Here is a link to a 2016 F-Type R with factory exhaust back (at that time) along with just the 200 cell downpipes. I do not believe it sounds raspy at all. Very aggressive and easily muted with the valves closed. I have attended so many events in this car where people would ask what exhaust I had. They were always shocked when it was the factory exhaust + downpipes. The tune will help with the sound and removing any CEL for the catalyst efficiency codes that will eventually come up. I have since added our Valvetronic exhaust to the car and it is much louder than stock, but still capable of being reserved with the valves closed.

 

This is my first post on these forums. Im new to this platform, but I’ve been working on and modifying cars my entire adult life. I just installed these on my 2016 R AWD.

Pro’s - High quality, perfect fit, great welds, easy install. Previous owner already had a VAP tune on the car and VAP provided me with an update tune free of charge. Excellent customer service from VAP. These are loud in dynamic mode. The pops and bangs are completely childish, but I love it when I’m in the mood. In normal mode, it sounds like stock.

Con’s - Tariffs if you’re in the States. These will cost an additional 26% between shipping and tariffs. Didn’t know until the email/bill came from UPS when the package hit the border. Just something to consider. These will throw a P0420/0430 code and you will need the tune to get rid of it. That’s an additional cost, but VAP’s tune seems very good and well worth it.

If you’re planning on tuning your car anyway, may as well do the lower pulley and downpipes all at once.

 

I ordered the pipes during the Black Friday sale and haven't gotten around to installing them yet. I also got hit with the tariffs, which suck since it pretty much eats up all the BF savings. The thing that's weird is VAP makes the pipes in Canada, so they should be exempted by CUSMA. I emailed them about that at the end of the year and still haven't gotten a reply. All I can figure is they buy all the parts from China or something and just weld them together in Canada? I'm still holding out hope that they're covered and I get those tariffs refunded, I just sent them another email about it. If not, you do save like $15 by prepaying the tarriffs instead of making the UPS delivery person hassle you for them.

 

Thanks you all for responding. I have been traveling, so not much time to reply. Lots of stuff to think about here. One thing I have noticed from the picture is that the cats are considerably smaller. Makes me wonder if they are really doing their job. Not tree hugger. I actually sell boxes, so we consume lots of trees, but the car has pass Texas emissions. Also, I am curious what the “guts” are made of. Have not seen any info on that. Lastly, the tariffs bring up an interest point. Insert your own thoughts here. Where exactly are they made? I look forward to this answer.

Again,lots of things to consider. I certainly appreciate the responses so far and look forward to obtaining more info so I can make an educated decision. Thank you.

 

I'm also in Texas, and I'm not concerned about passing emissions. My current cats have been throwing codes due to the typical melting issue, and I've passed emissions by just taking it in for inspection when the CEL isn't on (it's an intermittent thing). I'm sure with the VAP tune there won't be a CEL, so unless you're in a state that does a sniff test I don't think there's anything to worry about.

When I ordered mine it took a while to ship, and it said something in the email about them being manufactured on demand. So I assume someone at VAP is welding them up. The issue may be that the catalyst is imported from China or whatever, so it doesn't count as "made in Canada". According to the always infallible Google AI "if the exhaust pipes meet the CUSMA/USMCA rules of origin (meaning they use a certain percentage of North American content and high-wage labor), they can be imported into the U.S. duty-free". Only VAP can really answer that question though. At this point I'm just assuming I have to take the L on the tariffs, but if not that would be nice.

I ordered mine with resonators, so they look a little different from the previously posted ones. I know there were originally some complaints about raspyness, and the resonators are supposed to help.

 

Oh, and since you were asking about what's inside, I went out and took a pic. I've had my stock pipes off and looked at the cat, and it was definitely much finer than this. Also, it was more of a uniform grid, while this is kind of a swirl.

 

Judging from this pic those VAP cats use a metal substrate (and the VAP web site says they are metal) and I'm fairly sure the OEM cats use a ceramic substrate.
AFAIK ceramic substrate is prone to crumble/fall apart and hence fail a lot more often than metal substrate, that is if metal substrate falls apart at all.
Also the OEM cats are double-brick and at least 600 cell (cell count = cells per square inch of cross-section) so way more restrictive than the VAP 200 CPI ones.

 

Stock cat substrate for reference:




I replaced the downpipes for a few reasons - but getting more hp was not one of them. I’ve had supercharged/turbo charged cars in the past, and EGT’s are huge when it comes to overall performance and longevity of an engine. From what I have read and experienced (P0420 codes for failing cats at 33,000 miles !?!?!?) with this platform in the short time I’ve owned it, heat management is something needing to be addressed even from the factory. I also live in AZ where ambient temps are regularly over 100 for months at a time. These downpipes, replacing plastic cooling pipes, a larger charge cooler, maybe a killer chiller, possibly meth injection (cooling only, not tuned for performance on it) are on the list of things I’m doing / considering to keep this car healthy and happy.

 

Not sure who you emailed, but most likely would have come across my desk (granted we were closed from 12/24 through 1/5), but I don't have any overdue emails. Nevertheless, no offense, but CUSMA compliance means not much these days. We have seen situations where we have provided COO and still have tariffs assessed and other others where we did not and there were none. CBP has no consistency. We are anxiously waiting for the SC to make a decision on these tariffs and hopefully many customers will receive refunds. Stainless steel for instance is sourced from multiple places, so while we do assemble in Canada, that is not entirely how they asses the tariff value.

 

My original cats got destroyed due to the velocity tune. The 200 cell cats lasted 6 months and also got destroyed. I drilled and vacuumed what remained on the 200 cells. That was on a 2014 v8s. Did the same thing and drilled out the factory titanium cats on my 2020 svr. Best sounding svr.

 

Well that stinks. Were you running stage 1 or stage 2? Normal driving or track? Either way it is a lot of money for 6 months. From reading, it sounds like stage 2 is hard on the factory cats. Not sure about stage 1. Certainly not an expert though. Were they the velocity 200 cell? Thought they were metal inside.

 

Curious to know if you were running the pops and bang tune? Because I have personally had our 200 cel downpipes on my own personal vehicle since 2020 with our stage 3 tune and still running strong. We don't have reports of others having this failure, unless they are running the pops and bang tune, which we go to great lengths to warn customers about, but nevertheless, curious to learn from your experience.

 

Yes velocity 200 cell and it’s not about the stage. It’s about asking for pops and bangs on the tune and then asking for more

 

Yes I was. All me. I ruined the original cats 1 year into ownership and thought it was an age thing then killed the 200 cells. So when I buy my 3rd f-type I’ll again do a cat delete and ask for the bangs on my tune lol

 

For the sake of others, thank you for clarifying.

 

Yea if people are buying this and want all the pops and bangs I wouldn’t. For all other cases they were great.

 

Thanks for the clarification. No pops and bangs.

I assume if you don’t get the extra you still get what is “normal”

 

Yes that is correct. We offer a P&B tune that keeps the overruns coming until it drops below 2k RPM, I will tell you (as I have run it), I took it off almost immediately. Our normal tune provides enough exhaust note that suits most customers very well.