I'm looking to change the exhaust on my 03 STR. I found a shop that has a madrel bender and his suggestion was to start from the cat back and use 2.5in aluminized piping (he says less noise inside the cabin compared to stainless steel). He is going to replace the central resonator and the two mufflers with a brand called Sebring. They are made of stainless steel and he says they are pretty quiet and will have a nice low tone which is what I'm looking for. The only problem is that I have never heard of that brand before. Does anybody know anything about them?? Maybe they are popular for european cars? I'm used to the Magnaflow, Flowmaster, etc so if anybody has any experience with them please let me know.
My other option would be to buy the Mina exhaust system but from the pictures I've seen and what I've read here it sounds like the Mina system isn't actually cat-back, it's only the rear tubing and mufflers, is that correct? I'd think even with free flowing mufflers, the stock resonator would be somewhat restrictive? He quoted me $850 which is basically the same price as Mina but this would be a true cat-back system and also includes installation.

 

I had a Sebring exhaust system on a FD rx7 that appeared to be well made but was on the loud side. It may be that Sebring specializes in "louder" exhausts, but being a relatively unknown manufacturer, not really sure.
I have a 03 3.0 with a 5 speed manual, and after seeing the prices for Mina exhausts and such, I had a muffler shop remove the resonators and install straight pipes. Cost was $100. The sound is slightly louder and pleasing to my ear. Appears to be a bit more high rpm power based upon the butt dyno. The change did not throw any codes. Realize that my 3.0 is not in the the same league as your STR, but the resonator delete may be an option. At the very least your lose some weight and have a bit more of a straight through system. I have never heard of aluminized mild steel piping being quieter than stainless.

 

Interesting. I would love to know if losing the resonator does anything...

 

It does.. Changing to an X-Pipe on my car I picked up some low end torque and high end power, but I lost some of my mid-range torque. X's do weird things to cars and you really never know what exactly it will do until you try. The center resonator is not restrictive at all really. It is a straight through resonator with some baffles around the side to take out the raspy sound. The only negative thing it does is it creates turbulence in the exhaust flow which is almost unnoticeable from a performance standpoint. But if you want your car so sound a little bit meaner and more like V8 an X-pipe, along with some good mufflers, will give you an incredible exhaust note. I have people stop me in traffic 2-5 times a week to tell me my car sounds like a "mean son of a b*tch" haha or "what the hell do you have done to that thing??"

 

Does the stock exhaust cross-over at any point or is it a completely seperate dual exhaust? If it is seperate than going to the x-pipe should give it more of an American V8 sound? You also changed the tube size? That'll also change the torque curve.

 

whiteSTR- What mufflers did you use???

On a side note, I unbolted the mufflers the other day, to see how it would sound, and it sounded pretty good. I was thinking about just doing straight pipes after the resonator.

 

Well the stock exhaust never really "crosses over" but both side share the same resonator, so the the pressure is equal on both side. I kept the same size tubing, 2.25" I didn't want to lose too much backpresure or velocity in the exhaust. The rule with exhaust is: slightly too small is always better than slightly too big. My exhaust is 2.25" tubing all the way, an x-pipe in the middle and two 12" resonators in the rear, with stock tips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY9lO...response_watch

 

White: That sounds great man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tope_E0mDg

Also same size tubing as stock, except for the tips (obviously)

 

Agree. If you have an exhaust guy who knows how to bend pipes then you'll save a lot of money versus "Off the shelf" systems.

 

IMHO if you have a stainless option then go for it. Many stainless systems are "performance" kits and are louder based more on muffler design than due to the material used. The great thing about stainless is that it doesn't really corrode, so really you do this once and you are done - although since you live in California I'm guessing road salt isn't a big problem.

If you do go aluminized, at least spec stainless steel band clamps instead of the u-bolt style aluminized or naked steel clamps. The stainless clamps won't corrode and they do a better job of clamping and less risk of kinking a pipe if you over-tighten it.