I've had my Spires Stage 3 active exhaust on for about a week now. It was a little hard to pull the trigger, so my hope is that this makes the decision process a little easier for anyone else looking for an aftermarket exhaust.

Just to be clear, the Stage 3 is basically a cat back. There is a straight pipe that replaces the center resonators on my non-dynamic exhaust. Anyone with a dynamic exhaust will already have the straight pipe. I chose the active rear mufflers, so I retained the ability to have dynamic mode/the ecu open and close the outer two exhaust pipes.

Order Process:
Spires was very helpful via phone/email. I contacted them via email and we played phone tag. Be aware that the time difference can be a little hard to manage. They had the crossover in stock but the rear section was made to order. There was slight delay due to quality control on the exhaust tips, but honestly it was refreshing to deal with someone that seems to take pride in quality workmanship.

Fitment;
I had the system fitted on a lift by one of my techs. You could certainly do it yourself on some ramps or jack stands. Everything lined up very nicely; be aware that there is a right-side-up on the center section to get it to clear the center reinforcement plate.





The All-Important Sound;
With the valves closed (non-dynamic mode) it sounds much like the stock exhaust in dynamic mode. The exhaust note is deeper but just as quiet, on the freeway it's nearly silent. Cold start is obviously much louder, but it quiets down nicely.

In Dynamic mode (or if you buy the non-active exhaust) is it a totally different animal. Much louder, without any drone or negative resonance. It does not sound like an F-TYPE or a RR Sport SVR, it retains much more XKR character. There are some subtle overrun burbles and the occasional backfire noise, but it's not overplayed at all. If you pay attention to the stock exhaust note there is actually a lot of character happening there, this just brings it out and enhances it.


Other notes:
Angled tips with perforations inside are subtle and nice. I chose to stagger mine, it's easily changeable depending on what you like. A little finagling might be needed to get spaced apart equally on both sides as well.

 

Very Nice Austin

 

Looks nice, except I hope they cleaned up all those finger prints before they took it down from the lift!

 

The whole system looks nicely constructed

Do we know how much of a weight saving

 

Nice exhaust Austin.chance, mine is an Elite RR and it is brutal, never did a video of the noise, so just did a walk around and a small bit of noise at the end of the video, it was done with an android note 3 phone, it is brutal loud, when on the road it's even more violent, pops and bangs. Must get proper video done with right equipment.

 

Guess you need a new phone now, you blew out the mic on that one!