BMW Performance Exhaust + N55 - cold startup and rev vids! Enjoy :)

[1SerieStud]

Hey all,

As some of you may already know, I just had this exhaust installed yesterday and I can't stop driving my car. I went ahead and typed up some quick summaries/reviews of what I thought about the exhaust in another thread, however, in a nutshell, it's simply amazing!

I know there are a few of these threads around, however, the one other thread with similar name seems/sounds like it's an N54 engine car, which is why I went ahead and posted this - do not consider it a repeat.

Here are a couple of short videos that I just took, and I will be following them with some driving videos as soon as I get a chance. Enjoy!

Cold start:

Idle + revups

[new2the3]

That sounds mean!!

[MarkR171]

Honestly doesn't sound any different than my golf tee'd stock exhaust. Maybe it's just louder?

[1SerieStud]

Originally Posted by MarkR171

Honestly doesn't sound any different than my golf tee'd stock exhaust. Maybe it's just louder?

It does. Angle/wind distort the sound. I disconnected the vacuum line before swapping exhausts just to hear it for comparison. This is deeper/louder/throatier.

Edit: But remember, no matter what, this is a variation of the stock sound, so you will always hear a resemblance.

[MarkR171]

Absolutely. By the way, is the Perf Exhaust just an axleback? Or does it include midpipes?

[1SerieStud]

Originally Posted by MarkR171

Absolutely. By the way, is the Perf Exhaust just an axleback? Or does it include midpipes?

It's funny the way it comes. It's got the axle-back piece (which includes the muffler), and then it comes with what seems like 1/4 of the length of the midpipes...in other words, it's a section that's about 1.5-2 feet long that taps into the mid pipes - you're probably wondering why, well, this other section eliminates the resonator that's right in front of the muffler, if you look underneath your car.

[1SerieStud]

Ok guys, so here's an interesting update that some of you may be interested in. I've had the exhaust on my car for a little over 3000 miles and I have been enjoying it to the fullest. In the mean time, I've been communicating with several people that seem to be concerned about drone with this exhaust and the windows up. While I've owned multiple cars with a variety of exhausts that have been much louder, I actually consider this exhaust to be fairly quiet.

A couple of days ago, I advised someone who is concerned about drone to install the stock resonated y-pipe, but to keep the performance exhaust, to see if that takes care of the drone. This got my gears turning, and well, I decided to do the experiment myself! Now mind you, I never complaint about drone, but I did notice that the exhaust gets fairly louder around 2000rpm which is right around the area where most people complain about "drone". There is a bit of resonance around that spot of the power band, but nothing that I would call drone.

The results: the best of both worlds. Outside, the car continues to sound aggressive and louder than the stock exhaust. Inside with the windows up, the car sounds slightly louder than stock, but the loudness that occurs at around 2000 rpms is gone by about 80-90%. This actually indicates that the mufflers themselves are actually different, since some people suspected that they were identical with different tips welded on. The reason I make this point is that I feared that the "gained power" was due to the removal of the resonator by a "more free-flowing" pipe, however, when one looks at both y-pipes (resonated and non-resonated), their diameters are identical, and therefore there shouldn't be any difference in performance.

Because the exhausts continue to sound different while resonated, I am quite positive that the muffler itself has a different internal design which possibly flows more freely and hence yielding the extra minor performance increase.

Here's a resonated performance exhaust video; notice how it sounds nearly identical to my other videos of this exhaust without the resonator. The burble is still there and very predominant:

[warpanda]

Thanks so much for doing this! I'm definitely going to look into it.

[1SerieStud]

Originally Posted by warpanda

Thanks so much for doing this! I'm definitely going to look into it.

No problem. I'm actually thinking about keeping it this way. Even after full warm up and cruising around, the strongest point of the exhaust is right at 2000rpms, however, the volume inside the car has been incredibly reduced. This is right in between stock and the PE without resonator - middle ground.

[jsublime]

Originally Posted by 1SerieStud

This actually indicates that the mufflers themselves are actually different, since some people suspected that they were identical with different tips welded on. The reason I make this point is that I feared that the "gained power" was due to the removal of the resonator by a "more free-flowing" pipe, however, when one looks at both y-pipes (resonated and non-resonated), their diameters are identical, and therefore there shouldn't be any difference in performance.

Because the exhausts continue to sound different while resonated, I am quite positive that the muffler itself has a different internal design which possibly flows more freely and hence yielding the extra minor performance increase.

Here's a resonated performance exhaust video; notice how it sounds nearly identical to my other videos of this exhaust without the resonator. The burble is still there and very predominant:

I would sure hope it's a different muffler, otherwise you'd be paying damn near 1k for a piece of tube to eliminate the resonator! I'm still researching exhuast options, thanks for the info.

[N55_BBM]

Just got mine installed not too long ago, have drive about 250 miles on it.

I also thing it's annoying at 6th gear and 2000rpm, which is what I drive at to and from work for 20 min at least. Will post more on that on my upcoming thread with a full review and videos.

Anyway, thought it was interesting what you did with the resonator and I'm wondering how it would work out to do this the other way around... stock muffler with PE's y tube resonator delete.. the stock muffler has this valve that only opens when you floor the gas pedal so it's quiet when you're not accelerating heavily... so maybe it'll stay as quiet as stock when cruising and then give you a louder PE-like sound when gunning it?

[1SerieStud]

I thought about this too and there are some factors to take into account in terms of variations.

1) the valve on the stock muffler can be kept open at all times by performing the golf tee mod or by disconnecting it. Some people claim that this gives them a slightly mote aggressive sounding tone, without it being annoying. I find it that while keeping it open, the tone may be close to the setup I have right now (resonated PE) but lower in volume.

2) I think I found a good balance of loudness and virtually no drone with my current setup. You can still tell that the loud point is still 2000rpm however the resonator prevents it from gettig annoying.

3) the point you bring up is interesting. I also thought about removing the resonator and leaving the stocker on - after some research, I found out that our muffler is not really a muffler, because it has no baffles, it just has pockets filled with glass hair...in short, our mufflers are really resonators as well. Because it is a bigger resonator than the one on the y-pipe, I would assume that just replacing the y-pipe does not do much in terms of sound since the larger resonator would still be in place.

Originally Posted by brunobm

Just got mine installed not too long ago, have drive about 250 miles on it.

I also thing it's annoying at 6th gear and 2000rpm, which is what I drive at to and from work for 20 min at least. Will post more on that on my upcoming thread with a full review and videos.

Anyway, thought it was interesting what you did with the resonator and I'm wondering how it would work out to do this the other way around... stock muffler with PE's y tube resonator delete.. the stock muffler has this valve that only opens when you floor the gas pedal so it's quiet when you're not accelerating heavily... so maybe it'll stay as quiet as stock when cruising and then give you a louder PE-like sound when gunning it?

[richsnuc]

I did remove the resonator, and just leave the muffler. I think it sounds great at all RPM - much meaner at startup than stock, no 2K drone. Satisfying pop and crackle when decelerating, it's a great alternative to the performance exhaust!

Rich

[TwinTurboed]

I had an axleback on the car and the drone got really annoying. So i sold that and did a mid pipe cat and resonator delete for $100 at an exhaust shop and left that attached to the stock muffler. The sound is just perfect for me right now, no drone at all.

[lunohod (rus)]

what you think about that exhaust?

N55

[Canasian]

Sounds fantastic. I love this thread. Cold starts are so obnoxious w/Perf Exhaust and this car in general. I live at an apartment and I kinda feel bad sometimes but it's not coming off! I'll try to upload a vid of my own soon.