This is by no means a blow to Flows...but ever since I installed my headers, I really just don't care for the sound now. I highly recommend the the cat-back system to someone who has stock exhaust manifolds. But, I've had my headers and off-road y-pipe now for almost a year and a half, and their sound is driving me bonkers.
I'll try and explain....

At idle...it rocks....sounds good, low rumble, comes to life when you hammer it. My beef with the sound is with a mild slow but peppy accerlation, but not WOT either. As the rpm's go up there's this overwhelming rattling raspy, tin, hollow sound coming from what I believe is the tail pipes. I've tried different tips (i.e., stock wide ones, round tapered cut, flat-ended) all to no avail. Is this sound coming from the tail pipes?? Or is it just so loud its rattling something else down there? I never had this problem when I had my stock manifolds. I'm out of ideas, and am beginning to think about buying a new cat-back. I've ridden in many other f-bodies, and I've heard none that have that annoying raspiness. Any ideas or helpful hints in eliminating this??

 

thats what flows sound like with open exhaust, kinda like someone is doin a drum roll on a piece of metal

 

YES!!!! My goodness...I'm glad you came up with that analogy....I was banging my head trying to figure out one.

So there's no known cure?? Aaack!

 

IMO I personally like the wide open exhaust sound its sounds hella mean. Just my opinion though i wouldent change a thing. Again its your own choice and to each his own.

Good Luck,
-JOhn

 

yeh, i had a 2 chamber and a 1 chamber. damn that 1 chamber was 2x worse than the 2 chamber

 

I know exactly what you mean, I just installed my headers and gutted the cat this weekend. Everyone thinks it sounds great, but driving it around in normal driving it sounds "tinny". I miss the deep rumble it used to have

 

this likely comes from the resonation of the sound pulses hitting the baffles inside the muffler. I'll bet 90% of that would go away if you stick a Dynomax bullet in the I-pipe.

 

It's because you have NO cats. Removing the catalytic converters on a "single" exhaust set-up using a Y-pipe causes a lot of annoying rasp/metalicness in the mid rpm range with most aftermarket cat-backs on these cars. People love their exhaust up until they remove the cats, and then they can't stand it anymore(happens all the time). Although some actually like that sound. Ever hear an LS1 without cats? YUCK! It's even worse than the LT1. But still...

Some cat-backs(Borla, Flowmaster, SLP LM) just sound worse than others with offroad pipes.

If you want that "original" sound back, you'll need to put in some highflow cats in place of of your ORY. Trust me, it works.

Mike

2002 M6 Z28