First off, nice site! Just found it the other day, and registered today... I bought a 2005 WRX wagon recently (5-speed, black, only options being autodimming mirror and cargo mat), and am planning to drive it stock for a couple of months before doing anything to it (well, I AM doing the silencer removal this weekend...). Still haven't decided what to do first, but it'll likely be either a Cobb AP or exhaust. Now, the exhaust... I like it to be quiet and stealthy, and I think I have narrowed it down to a Greddy Evo 2. Was wondering what y'all thought of this particular one, and any experiences with installation, fitment, overall quality etc etc... I also welcome other suggestions for a good catback that meets my requirements. As for the downpipe, I want something of high quality that retains at least one cat for emissions purposes. Again, would like the least possible hassle with installation and fitment. Would be a bonus if it works well with the stock catback. Thoughts? I've been reading clubwrx and NASIOC and it seems like every dp has its proponents and opponents. Was leaning towards the catted Helix for a while, but seems like a lot of people are having leaks when they use it with the stock catback. Thanks for listening! :bigthumb:
Welcome to the site ... another wagon -- black at that (great wagon color) ... outstanding. On my 04 wagon, I have a Cobb downpipe (1 high-flow cat), Daddy Sport mid-pipe (straight-thru to replace the stock mid-pipe), and a Prodrive cat-back. Install was a snap -- all bolt-on. The only troublespots I experienced involved struggling with the turbo-to-downpipe bolts and leaving off the doughnut gasket between the mid-pipe and downpipe (which resulted in stripping a bolt, breaking it during the extraction, and giving myself a wrench-hits-face black eye in the process). None of that was specific to the parts I used though -- just my lack of wrench skills! As for sound, I am extremely pleased with it. It's a deep sound ... not as loud as many of the setups out there, but a huge improvement over stock and a very sporty sound at all revs. I drove it for a while with just the catback upgraded -- the rest stock. It was a nice improvement, but the sound really opened up once I upgraded the rest of the exhuast system. A friend recorded me driving down the front straight at Road Atlanta, and I couldn't believe how beefy the exhaust sounded at high speed. If you want to have a listen, here's a link to some short video clips of my car at the track: http://www.dagrants.com/video/wrx/ Check out the clip that starts with RATurn12 in the title ... you'll need the Real Player to see it. Lots of good options out there though, so it will be interesting to hear about other setups. It's nice to have these boxer engines to work with. The core sound of the boxer engine, while not Ferrari, is near perfect in my mind. Jeff
Thanks for the reply. Your car sounds great in that video. How loud is it during daily driving? Do you get any droning on the highway? I was looking at the Cobb downpipe, but it is pretty costly. I guess you really do get what you pay for, though, eh? Did you have to do anything to avoid getting a check engine light after going to a single cat?
Thanks ... I think questions of loudness and droning are so individual that it's hard to give you an answer that someone with different preferences and the same setup wouldn't 100% disagree with. With that said, for my tastes, I think that the sound is great for daily driving. At times when I want to be steathly, it's no problem (in my neighborhood, near a a cop, near a funeral procession, whatever). At idle or very low revs, I think my setup isn't worlds apart from stock. When I'm on the throttle though, it's music to my ears -- well above the sound level of any stock exhaust - but the exact sound I want to hear in nearly every driving situation I'm in on a daily basis. I can't think of a time in the year that I've had this exhaust setup that I thought it was too loud. As for droning ... well, the days of my car being a quiet and comfy highway driver went out the window when I put the coilovers on, so my expecations have changed. I rode in a friend's stock wagon a few weeks ago and I was shocked at how much quieter the ride was on the highway -- a big difference. Now -- that doesn't mean I don't like the sound of mine on the highway -- just setting the expectation that at least with this setup, it's going to be far from the Buick side of the continuum. Nothing makes a long drive more awakening than dropping it down to 4th and laying on the throttle only to hear the growl of a nice exhaust. I'm willing to deal with the highway noise ... even on 6-8 hour runs down to Florida ... in exchange for the daily driving and track sound I'm getting now. Good luck with your decision. Jeff
Forgot to answer your last question ... no CEL issues. I should also add to the above discussion that I'm running with a cat-less up-pipe as well (although not on the May 2004 clip you listened to). Cheers, Jeff
Milo has the helix up and downpipes so he can chime in about them if you have any questions. They are a really good deal from what I've seen and all up-pipes and downpipes perform about the same. Mike has a Stromung cat back and it is pretty quiet and still retains the dual tip look. I'm sure all the AP users will chime in with their good experiences.
I have the Helix Up & Downpipe with the Stromung cat-back and I love the way it sounds. It's really quite compared to milo blitz. Mine is a little lourer than the Prodrive cat-back.....Let me know if you have any more questions...... Mike
I have Crucial Racing ceramic coated UP/DP with Stromung 3" catback. Stromung sounds really sweet. It got louder and SWEETER after i put DP (mine is shorty version). But it'll never drone during highway driving. At WOT, it just sounds sooo damn good.
got the pde uppipe, helix catted downpipe and blitz nur spec-r cat back... i LOVE it loud... but if u want a quiet ride, i'd recommend u go with a different setup as for engine management, a lot of people have been happy with AP... however im in favor of tunable EM... i had a UTEC earlier (which i have for sale) but switched to ecutek and am extremely happy with it
I'll second Milo's comments on engine management. I started with AccessECU and then went with AP as soon as it was released. Stage 1, followed by TBE and up-pipe, then AP Stage 2 maps. I loved the convenience of the AP, but my car is one of those that an off-the-shelf map doesn't fit. Even at Stage 2, max boost was under 15 psi and the car never felt like other stage 2 cars. I downloaded update after update from Cobb and just never got what was looking for out of the AP. I sold my AP and had Siegel tune my car with Ecutek. The difference on my car was night and day. I'm at 19psi max boost now -- great torque on the dyno, great all-around engine feel. If you're lucky enough to have a car that is off-the-shelf map-friendly, AP may be the ticket -- for those of us who don't, I'm glad we have the custom tuning option. Jeff
Still waiting on a copy of my dyno from Porter (thinking that it may arrive in time for Christmas), so I'm going off memory .... torque in the low-mid 250s, HP lower than expected in the low 200s range. Whatever the specific torque number, we were pleased at the time-- not as much so with HP. I had a cold engine up-pipe leak during the run, so I should have more potential now that the leak is fixed (bad gasket). I compared it to someone's stage II AP run (with similar mods) and I'm running very conservatively rich. Once Christmas arrives and I receive my dyno plot, I'm planning to have Scott review it and fine-tune my map if needed. Not sure how much of a factor the leak was, so I'm anxious to get another run in. As for the butt dyno, all I can say is that life is much better coming out of Turn 7 at RA now ... and on the SB GA400 to Glenridge exit ramp.
Been doing some more research, and I'm really leaning heavily towards the Evo 2. Found it for $545 online, which I can live with. The Helix DP looks like a good deal. Any cons to it?
mike and i both have the helix cated dp... i'm lovin it and so is mike... only problem is that it didn't seal right with both our cat-back sections with the single gasket provided... simply double gasket it and u will be fine...
Thanks... did you use it with a stock catback at some point? I'm thinking I'd do the downpipe first, then the catback... Another couple questions: Are emissions mostly clean with a single cat (assuming catless uppipe) in the exhaust? I'm not so much worried about passing the test; more thinking that I don't want to start polluting just to gain 5-10hp. For a reasonably mechanically inclined individual, how much of a pain is it to replace the uppipe while the downpipe is off?
Yup, keep AT LEAST one cat for the trees. Atlanta is already suffering severe air pollution due to H2s and other big SUVs. I only have 3rd stock cat. It doesn't smell that bad once it fully warms up. but for sure, my bumper gets dirtier a lot these days.
i never used the helix dp with the stock catback.... neither did mike... so i dunno about fitment issues there... i have a single hi-flow cat and after the car warms up, it smells fine... i don't notice much particulate matter on my bumper cuz my car is black
The helix dp will fix perfect with the stock cat-back. Like Milo said you need two gaskets for anyother cat-back to meet well.
Cool. Does the Helix pipe create any issues with the O2 sensors? I've read about some spacer(?) being used to rectify CELs...
Gotcha. I suppose I could run without it for a while and see... So Helix downpipe, Greddy Evo 2 catback, and maybe some sort of uppipe. Sounds like a good deal... probably a little over $1k total. Now I just have to decide whether to go for exhaust or engine management first. (Seems like either way will work..)
depends on what kind of EM u plan on going with... if u plan on going with something that has fixed maps (like accessport) then get it first... u will feel a big gain with just engine management and then when u get the exhaust put on, just reflash the ecu again for even more gains if u plan on going with a tunable alternative (ecutek or utec) which i personally prefer, then wait till u have ur mods done and get it tuned... just cuz tuning is a lot of $$$
I'm most likely going the AP route. Since they're coming out with the StreetTUNER deal this quarter (allegedly!), it's become even more attractive to me. So maybe this would work then: Accessport (load stage 1) Helix catted downpipe (load stage 2) Evo 2 catback ???? Uppipe ...that ought to get me close to 280hp, right?
moose: TBE & Uppipe W/ accessport should put you around 230-240 I would say, just from what I saw that the last dyno day @ TopSpeed.
Are you talking whp? I was thinking crank... 230+ whp is around 300 crank, right? I'd definitely settle for that.
crank power is an estimate... im not sure whether drivetrain losses are absolute losses or linear or some screwed up equation... also measurements are different on different dynos, with dynojet supposedly reading higher... on dynapak my car made ~233whp and ~255 lb-ft and then 2 days later it made ~251 whp and ~265 lb-ft on dynojet... weather changes? dyno variance? ecu finished learning? i dunno... anyways, best thing to do would be measure wheel hp and keep going to the same dyno...
Yeah I was talking about wheel horse power. From what I saw at the last dyno day most guys with TBE, Uppipe & AP were putting down around those numbers. Like Milind said, keep going to the same dyno for every dyno is different and reads different.
Maybe on a factory freak with AP. I'd imagine that the AP is tuned rather conservatively to account for variances in build quality of the motors. A custom tune will be able to squeeze out a couple more horsies.
To comment on smell/particulate presence, I haven't noticed either with one high flow cat (Cobb dp) -- and appearance-wise, that's with a silver bumper. I get a bit of smudgy, black residue on the bottom lip of muffler tip, but it's hardly noticable. I really wish that I had dynoed my car with the AP -- would have made an interesting comparison between a non-AP friendly car running AP vs. a custom tune. It felt much difference, but numbers would have been nice. Too bad it's cost-prohibitive for most of us to dyno and tune b4 and after every mod.
I never really smelled exhaust unless I was really hammering it. I did get some residue on the rear hatch after long drives but when I was living at home I washed the car every week anyways.