So I deleted the rear mufflers as someone recommended it, but I'm getting bad drone in the cab under slight acceleration. Wondering where I should go from here. I kept the stock mufflers just in case, but thinking of maybe trying magnaflow. Should I delete the front muffler as well and maybe to a x pipe?
Any suggestions? I don't want anything too crazy, just want to give the V8 a bit of presence and rumble.
I have a 2000 Vanden Plas.

 

I did the same rear muffler delete and hated the drone - just not in keeping with these luxury saloons - so I put the originals back on and sold the delete pipes.

One of my flexi pipes was blowing to I took the chance to delete the centre muffler and replace it with an X-Pipe. I know have a lovely burble - not at all loud but enough to tell you that it's a V8. Recommended...

 

I think I might have to put that on my "to do list".

 

I had done a H pipe in place of the center muffler on my XJR and there was no audible difference. Maybe I should have gone with an x pipe instead.

 

Delete the front single muffler and have an X pipe installed. Delete the 2 center mufflers in front of the differential with straight pipe. Leave the 2 rearmost mufflers alone. V8 rumble, nearly no drone and overall exhaust is not loud.

 

I wonder how the front box & resonators in front of the axle interact. Because when I got my stainless system done they recommended keeping the front & rear boxes but removing the resonators. I get an awful drone around 2k rpm now & booting it makes things go quiet...

I might end up getting some resonators back in & leave it quiet as the drone is rather annoying.

 

Thinking I'll go this route. Thanks.

 

I learned a very expensive lesson the hard way as a young man back in the early 90s. I started modifying my 1985 Toyota Supra. Everyone else was installing way too big pipes and low-restriction mufflers so I did too. It sounded horrible. I went back but once its welded in, there's no refund. I paid them more to change the muffler to another type. Still horrible, just in a different way. They suggested adding a resonator between the cat and the new muffler. No difference.but now I'm up to about $1,600 so far and still driving me nuts between 30-40mph. I tried to live with it but gave in again after about six months and finally found a shop owner with enough experience to give good advice. He actually kept sound recordings of each system he built on videotape. He hadn't done a Supra but had done some similar cars so we went through some videos and he explained what he did to each car and what made it sound the way it did. The real key apparently was the pipe diameter which he reduced to 2.25" for my Supra and built another entirely new system. It was much better, but I still went back later to try yet another muffler before it was livable. I'd spent well over $3,000 on exhaust systems and then only a few years later, I built a new turbo motor to swap and did it all over again. .

OEM's probably spend millions just on designing the exhaust system on a single car to make sure it sounds good {maybe not the way you want, but still good}. They probably have software that they can model it and somewhat predict what its going to sound like and how its going to perform to reduce the number of iterations they have to actually build and test. For us amateurs, its trial and error process and we risk running out of money before we get it right. Further into adulthood, I bought an aftermarket system for my Corvette. That is probably the best option {if available} as the aftermarket company has already done the trial and error. You might find somebody on a forum who likes what they've done and posts their recipe to follow. That might work out, but you still can't get a refund if you don't like it.

I wish you the best of luck, but whatever you do, don't let the shop cut up the original system. That was my first mistake as they cut a bunch of the connectors and hangers off my stock system to where I could never have put it back in the car. At least as long as your stock components are untouched, you can always go back if you get tired of the new noise.

 

I have a system on my car from Paramount Performance here in the UK. It keeps the standard centre box but deletes the pre axle silencers and has differently designed back boxes. The system works perfectly, a nice V8 beat on idle and the V8 music when accelerating. But by far the best and perhaps most bizarre thing is that at exactly 70mph it’s silent. The UK motorway speed limit is 70 so on long journeys on cruise control it hardly makes a sound unless you hit a big incline, just no droning.

The system is really meant for XJRs and my little 3.2 doesn’t really do it justice. However @Sean B B has a similar system from Paramount on his XJR 100 and that sounds an absolute beast!