Another happy Berk exhaust customer

[Revelate]

Thank you to David at EAS and Berk for making a great product.

I couldn't decide between the Berk or the MadDad setup, but a holiday special at EAS swayed me to go with the Berk Full Street Exhaust.

The fitment was generally good, but the midpipe bends could have been better, at least for my car. Starting about a foot back from the mating at the downpipe, the passenger side midpipe drops to 1 1/4" below the underbody and leaves a 2" gap between it and the heat shield above. With a proper bend, this could have easily been routed flat with no obstructions towards the exhaust pipe. The drivers side midpipe has the same general bend radius, but is not as bad. I'm usually careful about scraping on bumps and surface transitions, but it's a prime area behind the front wheels for a speed bump and suspension compression to smack it.

The tailpipes lined up perfectly left-to-right. It hangs about 1/2" lower than ideal, but bending and properly aligning the hangers would be difficult with the hanger design and it still looks good.

I've had it installed for one month and driven about 600 miles and so far I'm very happy. It's exactly what I wanted... noticeable but still civilized at idle/cruise and assertive on the throttle.

My butt-dyno is happy as well. The throttle feels snappier, it might've reduced or at least smoothed out the turbo lag, and there's a little extra oomph, especially at higher RPMs. Of course that could all be in my head, but I'm satisfied nonetheless.

A word of advice for those shopping around. I spent many hours doing general research, listening to YouTube clips and reading people's impressions of various exhausts. But now that I have an exhaust installed, I realize that I didn't need any of that information or "advice".

As long as it generally meets what most would expect from an aftermarket exhaust (louder, no offensive noises, performance increase, weight reduction) you will not regret the purchase and wish you had another brand, so in my opinion it's a waste of time to play the comparison game with poor reference material.

Also, it's impossible to understand or appreciate the audible qualities of an exhaust, especially in the cabin, without driving the vehicle. With the Berk exhaust (and I'm guessing most other respectable brands) I can alternate between loud and sensible with the gas pedal and gear selection. All the video clips, advice and comments given about loudness, sound and general likability are, in my opinion, too subjective to provide any meaningful value to you as a reference for comparing brands and models.

My advice is to purchase a reputable cat-back exhaust without too much analysis. The only major consideration would be for removal of the muffler or catless downpipes, but unless you want to be obnoxious that's not really an option anyway. And all good systems appear to maintain a resonator to tune unwanted noises out of the exhaust note.

+1 for Berk.