Exhaust Advice

ShocknAwe · 03-28-2013, 02:13 PM

First off, car: 2010 135i w/ N54 platform.

OK. So I think I'm at the point where I need some advice from folks that have these systems, or have heard them in person. I have watched a TON of videos online and read I think every thread on here with Berk in the name.

I am currently running fully stock exhaust with the "golf tee" mod done.
It is not loud enough for me, I want more turbo sound, more burble, etc etc.

What I want to do is this:
Stock DP, stock N54 midpipes (at least for now) and the Berk Street axleback. My backup is the MadDad Whisper axleback. However, I feel from my text and video research that the MadDad will be too quiet.

On the Berk axleback:
This sounds good on the videos (hard to find any without DP!) but I've read a lot about drone at ~2200 rpms. Now I know everyone has different tolerances for drone, but I'm wondering how bad it will be with stock DPs and middies.

To throw a curveball here, I am considering having my secondary cats cut out, or just getting a N55 midpipe eventually. I do not have any plans for putting catless or aftermarket DPs on the car at all. Ultimately I plan to resonate the midpipes with vibrant resonators but that is a project for later.

Anyone willing to sound off, I appreciate your time and welcome your input, encouragement or criticism, either way.

Vorsprung_CJB · 03-28-2013, 02:33 PM

I have the Berk street and I think the loudness is fine with the stock DP and MP. A lot of people who added a full turbo-back later found it got a little too loud though. You won't hear much spool without downpipes. I don't notice any major drone, but my commute is short and I don't drive on the highway much. I do notice a little of the "blowing through a straw" sound at high throttle but it isn't too bad. A lot of 135 exhausts make a similar sound. I considered the MadDad Whisper too, but it is a bit pricey for my mod budget and I got a used Berk super cheap.

foofopps · 03-28-2013, 02:45 PM

I have berk mids and berk race. I love it, it's loud, really loud on start up. I'm going to DPs and go back to stock muffler to quiet it down. If I were you I would def get berk mids and berk street (that's what I would do with stock DPs). The mids will give you that awesome burble.

Zombie1 · 03-28-2013, 02:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by foofopps

I have berk mids and berk race. I love it, it's loud, really loud on start up. I'm going to DPs and go back to stock muffler to quiet it down. If I were you I would def get berk mids and berk street (that's what I would do with stock DPs). The mids will give you that awesome burble.

Would a berk street with berk mids with hi flo cated down pipes be to loud?

heiman5 · 03-28-2013, 03:26 PM

I might be a special case, but I found the Berk Street to be not much louder than stock... granted my stock exhaust had 90k miles on it, but when I made the switch I can barely tell except for WOT

foofopps · 03-28-2013, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zombie1

Quote:

Originally Posted by foofopps

I have berk mids and berk race. I love it, it's loud, really loud on start up. I'm going to DPs and go back to stock muffler to quiet it down. If I were you I would def get berk mids and berk street (that's what I would do with stock DPs). The mids will give you that awesome burble.

Would a berk street with berk mids with hi flo cated down pipes be to loud?

I couldn't say personally but I lot of guys with DPs seem to run the berk street.

ShocknAwe · 03-28-2013, 06:46 PM

Good stuff, thanks guys. Anyone cut the cats off their N54 mids and replace them with resonators?

Walter_Sobchak · 03-28-2013, 08:48 PM

My Berk street setup sounded sweet when it was all stock. Noticeable but socially responsible. It would've gotten better as it got more miles on it. I only had a few hundred miles on it when I installed dp's at which time I couldn't stop driving the car it sounded so good (windows down, radio off!) It sounds so juicy I get comments from non car people. Get it you won't regret it and if you do get dp's or mids later on you won't be getting attention from the five-oh. My setup after 4k rpm really howls noticeably.

AKopp · 03-29-2013, 11:17 AM

This may help:

AR DPs (catless) and Berk Street Exhaust

TheBurro · 03-29-2013, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShocknAwe

What I want to do is this:
Stock DP, stock N54 midpipes (at least for now) and the Berk Street axleback. My backup is the MadDad Whisper axleback. However, I feel from my text and video research that the MadDad will be too quiet.

On the Berk axleback:
This sounds good on the videos (hard to find any without DP!) but I've read a lot about drone at ~2200 rpms. Now I know everyone has different tolerances for drone, but I'm wondering how bad it will be with stock DPs and middies.

To throw a curveball here, I am considering having my secondary cats cut out, or just getting a N55 midpipe eventually. I do not have any plans for putting catless or aftermarket DPs on the car at all. Ultimately I plan to resonate the midpipes with vibrant resonators but that is a project for later.

Anyone willing to sound off, I appreciate your time and welcome your input, encouragement or criticism, either way.

I have a very low tolerance for drone, I hate it. I am very much an old man (in spirit) yelling at drone to get off my lawn. I had the Berk Street axleback for about 8 months, and it was great. I would not have kept it that long if there had been drone. If the windows are down, you're at highway speed, and you romp on the gas, the wind noise can sometimes even drown it out. It's not super aggressive. I took my car to a track day, and going down the front straight at full tilt, I couldn't hear it.

Now there is another area you mentioned, and that is the midpipes. I added Maddad midpipes to my car, and the sound was L-O-U-D inside the car. Anything on the highway between 60-70 was drone city. I could not stand it. So I decided to try a few different combos out, and surprisingly, I kinda liked having the Maddad midpipes with the stock axleback, with the golf tee mod. It still sounds good, there is no drone, and it works for me.

I will add though, that the exterior sound the maddad + berk combo provided was superb. It was just the interior noise that drove me nuts.

Hope this helps.

ShocknAwe · 03-29-2013, 12:39 PM

Thanks again for the feedback guys. I'm going to pull the trigger! Might even get lucky and get a lightly used pipe from someone here.

Akopp:
That was one of the videos that made me think it would be a good setup. Thanks for posting it though, hopefully it will help someone else in my position!

TheBurro:
That's good news. My last car droned a little more than this one and it didn't really bother me, so I think I'll probably be able to tolerate it with mids done too. I guess we'll see. I'll have to check out the MadDad mids you are talking about and see how they stack up to everything else and compare feedback. Thanks.

bmw0bsession · 04-01-2013, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walter_Sobchak

My Berk street setup sounded sweet when it was all stock. Noticeable but socially responsible. It would've gotten better as it got more miles on it. I only had a few hundred miles on it when I installed dp's at which time I couldn't stop driving the car it sounded so good (windows down, radio off!) It sounds so juicy I get comments from non car people. Get it you won't regret it and if you do get dp's or mids later on you won't be getting attention from the five-oh. My setup after 4k rpm really howls noticeably.

I live in the Valley, with the Downpipes, is the exhaust REALLY loud to the point where police turn to look at you? I currently run a Berk street with Resonator Delete and it sounds awesome but I want to run a Stage 2 Cobb but for that I need a DP. I am just worried it will be SUPER loud.

ilikebmxbikes · 04-02-2013, 01:21 AM

Sounds like u want berk race and not berk street

Walter_Sobchak · 04-02-2013, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bmw0bsession

I live in the Valley, with the Downpipes, is the exhaust REALLY loud to the point where police turn to look at you? I currently run a Berk street with Resonator Delete and it sounds awesome but I want to run a Stage 2 Cobb but for that I need a DP. I am just worried it will be SUPER loud.

My exhaust WAS on the obnoxious side until I found out that my waste gate actuator arm was blocked from the DP install. Now it is almost too quiet, I miss the sound but I'd rather have the extra 8 lbs of boost I was missing... I still have my stock midpipes so I don't know what your set up will sound like. My guess is if you keep the muffler you won't be too obnoxious.

bluecat · 04-02-2013, 08:13 AM

Here is my experience. The first exhaust mod I attempted was, stock dp, stock midpipe, rogue DMS axle back. Good lord the drone... I couldn't take it, returned to stock immediately.

Second attempt a few months later was stock dp, n55 mids and stock axle back with golf tee. Nice little bump in sound, zero drone.

This month I've gone stock dp, n55 mids and berk street axleback and have been very happy. Again, nice little bump in sound, with the addition of some turbo scream at WOT. MINIMAL drone increase over my previous and still nowhere near the rogue DMS. I would recommend it.

PM Kevin_@_EAS if you haven't already. Cheapest vendor I found for the berk street by a large margin.

AKopp · 04-02-2013, 11:36 AM

I didn't find the exhaust to be too much louder when I went up to catless downpipes... Mostly at WOT.

ripper0306 · 04-02-2013, 11:45 AM

I have the Berk street exhaust with Stock DP and Stock Mids, It's not really loud
For me, it's not louder enough.

It's a really good mod, if you just want a little louder and aggressive exhaust, and few burbles.
But for me, it's not enough

, and I didn't notice any drone.

ShocknAwe · 04-02-2013, 04:07 PM

Thanks guys. More feedback than I could have hoped for. Going to start off with the Berk Street, then maybe N55 mids. Decided against cutting up my stock mids as it will be much harder to return to stock if I have to.

SERIK · 11-17-2022, 07:46 PM

Not to create a new thread maybe some one will chime in.
I have a n55 1 series running berk race catback exhaust with berk resonated mid pipes, paired with vrsf catless dp. Drone doing past 60 mph on a highway is obnoxiously loud even plastic rattles inside, you cant talk to anyone regardless of windows being up or down. My question is would a berk street muffler solve my drone issues or a stock mid pipe or i should pair berk street axle back with stock mid pipes? Thank you

ShocknAwe · 11-18-2022, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SERIK

Not to create a new thread maybe some one will chime in.
I have a n55 1 series running berk race catback exhaust with berk resonated mid pipes, paired with vrsf catless dp. Drone doing past 60 mph on a highway is obnoxiously loud even plastic rattles inside, you cant talk to anyone regardless of windows being up or down. My question is would a berk street muffler solve my drone issues or a stock mid pipe or i should pair berk street axle back with stock mid pipes? Thank you

Berk street will be better, problem is likely the position of the resonators relative to your exhaust pulse frequency. A drone pipe will fix it if you have an exhaust fabricator local to you.

SERIK · 11-19-2022, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShocknAwe

Quote:

Originally Posted by SERIK

Not to create a new thread maybe some one will chime in.
I have a n55 1 series running berk race catback exhaust with berk resonated mid pipes, paired with vrsf catless dp. Drone doing past 60 mph on a highway is obnoxiously loud even plastic rattles inside, you cant talk to anyone regardless of windows being up or down. My question is would a berk street muffler solve my drone issues or a stock mid pipe or i should pair berk street axle back with stock mid pipes? Thank you

Berk street will be better, problem is likely the position of the resonators relative to your exhaust pulse frequency. A drone pipe will fix it if you have an exhaust fabricator local to you.

Just got the street from member on here, will try it out, i bet itll be better than just race. I love race in city driving but highway is awful. Thank you for your input will see how street performs.

twinturbovan · 11-20-2022, 07:17 PM

I currently have VRSF Catless Downpipes, Berk Resonated Midpipes and the full Berk Race Exhaust to date. It does have a lot of drone but it doesn't bother me because the car is a a track car. It's super loud and pretty much sounds like a mini GTR. Here's a video of my car on a Dyno and a GTR on a dyno. The Berk full Race Exhaust sounds very similar to a GTR just not as high pitched. Hope this helps anyone whos considering the Race or Street Exhaust.

03-28-2013, 02:13 PM	#1
ShocknAwe 1Addict 5380 Rep 9,253 Posts Drives: N54 E82, M57 E70, 964 C4 Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: Charleston iTrader: (22)	Exhaust Advice - Berk Street First off, car: 2010 135i w/ N54 platform. OK. So I think I'm at the point where I need some advice from folks that have these systems, or have heard them in person. I have watched a TON of videos online and read I think every thread on here with Berk in the name. I am currently running fully stock exhaust with the "golf tee" mod done. It is not loud enough for me, I want more turbo sound, more burble, etc etc. What I want to do is this: Stock DP, stock N54 midpipes (at least for now) and the Berk Street axleback. My backup is the MadDad Whisper axleback. However, I feel from my text and video research that the MadDad will be too quiet. On the Berk axleback: This sounds good on the videos (hard to find any without DP!) but I've read a lot about drone at ~2200 rpms. Now I know everyone has different tolerances for drone, but I'm wondering how bad it will be with stock DPs and middies. To throw a curveball here, I am considering having my secondary cats cut out, or just getting a N55 midpipe eventually. I do not have any plans for putting catless or aftermarket DPs on the car at all. Ultimately I plan to resonate the midpipes with vibrant resonators but that is a project for later. Anyone willing to sound off, I appreciate your time and welcome your input, encouragement or criticism, either way. __________________ 2010 E82 1 Series M Clone Hydra Performance augmented OEM+
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03-28-2013, 02:33 PM	#2
Vorsprung_CJB Private 8 Rep 99 Posts Drives: AW 135i Join Date: May 2011 Location: PA iTrader: (1)	I have the Berk street and I think the loudness is fine with the stock DP and MP. A lot of people who added a full turbo-back later found it got a little too loud though. You won't hear much spool without downpipes. I don't notice any major drone, but my commute is short and I don't drive on the highway much. I do notice a little of the "blowing through a straw" sound at high throttle but it isn't too bad. A lot of 135 exhausts make a similar sound. I considered the MadDad Whisper too, but it is a bit pricey for my mod budget and I got a used Berk super cheap.
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03-28-2013, 02:45 PM	#3
foofopps Second Lieutenant 16 Rep 225 Posts Drives: e90 m3 Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Chicago iTrader: (3)	I have berk mids and berk race. I love it, it's loud, really loud on start up. I'm going to DPs and go back to stock muffler to quiet it down. If I were you I would def get berk mids and berk street (that's what I would do with stock DPs). The mids will give you that awesome burble.
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03-28-2013, 03:26 PM	#5
heiman5 Private First Class 5 Rep 130 Posts Drives: '08 BSM / Coral 135i Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Boston, MA iTrader: (2)	I might be a special case, but I found the Berk Street to be not much louder than stock... granted my stock exhaust had 90k miles on it, but when I made the switch I can barely tell except for WOT
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03-28-2013, 06:46 PM	#7
ShocknAwe 1Addict 5380 Rep 9,253 Posts Drives: N54 E82, M57 E70, 964 C4 Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: Charleston iTrader: (22)	Good stuff, thanks guys. Anyone cut the cats off their N54 mids and replace them with resonators? __________________ 2010 E82 1 Series M Clone Hydra Performance augmented OEM+
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03-28-2013, 08:48 PM	#8
Walter_Sobchak Private 6 Rep 51 Posts Drives: 2010 AW 135I Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Redondo Beach, CA iTrader: (1)	My Berk street setup sounded sweet when it was all stock. Noticeable but socially responsible. It would've gotten better as it got more miles on it. I only had a few hundred miles on it when I installed dp's at which time I couldn't stop driving the car it sounded so good (windows down, radio off!) It sounds so juicy I get comments from non car people. Get it you won't regret it and if you do get dp's or mids later on you won't be getting attention from the five-oh. My setup after 4k rpm really howls noticeably.
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03-29-2013, 11:17 AM	#9
AKopp Second Lieutenant 29 Rep 265 Posts Drives: 2009 BMW 135i Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: PA iTrader: (0)	This may help: AR DPs (catless) and Berk Street Exhaust __________________ 2009 135i - SG/Coral - 19" Alufelgen SF-71 - ST Coilovers - Cobb Stage 2+ - AR Downpipes - Berk Sport Exhaust - Active Autowerke Charge Pipe - AMS FMIC - AFE DCI - LUX V3 Angel Eyes - LCI Blacklines - Active Autowerke Strut Tower Brace - BMW Performance CF Spoiler - Kerscher Carbon Splitter - Scopian CF Diffuser - MusicarNW Level 2
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03-29-2013, 12:39 PM	#11
ShocknAwe 1Addict 5380 Rep 9,253 Posts Drives: N54 E82, M57 E70, 964 C4 Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: Charleston iTrader: (22)	Thanks again for the feedback guys. I'm going to pull the trigger! Might even get lucky and get a lightly used pipe from someone here. Akopp: That was one of the videos that made me think it would be a good setup. Thanks for posting it though, hopefully it will help someone else in my position! TheBurro: That's good news. My last car droned a little more than this one and it didn't really bother me, so I think I'll probably be able to tolerate it with mids done too. I guess we'll see. I'll have to check out the MadDad mids you are talking about and see how they stack up to everything else and compare feedback. Thanks. __________________ 2010 E82 1 Series M Clone Hydra Performance augmented OEM+
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04-02-2013, 01:21 AM	#13
ilikebmxbikes Banned 1544 Rep 4,743 Posts Drives: S65 1M Clone & E92 M3 4.6L Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: San Francisco iTrader: (42) Garage List '08/13 1M Clone 4.0L [10.00] '11 e92 M3 4.6L [10.00]	Sounds like u want berk race and not berk street
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04-02-2013, 08:13 AM	#15
bluecat Lieutenant 34 Rep 540 Posts Drives: z4 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: MA iTrader: (2)	Here is my experience. The first exhaust mod I attempted was, stock dp, stock midpipe, rogue DMS axle back. Good lord the drone... I couldn't take it, returned to stock immediately. Second attempt a few months later was stock dp, n55 mids and stock axle back with golf tee. Nice little bump in sound, zero drone. This month I've gone stock dp, n55 mids and berk street axleback and have been very happy. Again, nice little bump in sound, with the addition of some turbo scream at WOT. MINIMAL drone increase over my previous and still nowhere near the rogue DMS. I would recommend it. PM Kevin_@_EAS if you haven't already. Cheapest vendor I found for the berk street by a large margin.
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04-02-2013, 11:36 AM	#16
AKopp Second Lieutenant 29 Rep 265 Posts Drives: 2009 BMW 135i Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: PA iTrader: (0)	I didn't find the exhaust to be too much louder when I went up to catless downpipes... Mostly at WOT. __________________ 2009 135i - SG/Coral - 19" Alufelgen SF-71 - ST Coilovers - Cobb Stage 2+ - AR Downpipes - Berk Sport Exhaust - Active Autowerke Charge Pipe - AMS FMIC - AFE DCI - LUX V3 Angel Eyes - LCI Blacklines - Active Autowerke Strut Tower Brace - BMW Performance CF Spoiler - Kerscher Carbon Splitter - Scopian CF Diffuser - MusicarNW Level 2
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04-02-2013, 11:45 AM	#17
ripper0306 Second Lieutenant 17 Rep 233 Posts Drives: M3 E92 Black & White Edition Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: French Riviera (South of France) iTrader: (1)	I have the Berk street exhaust with Stock DP and Stock Mids, It's not really loud For me, it's not louder enough. It's a really good mod, if you just want a little louder and aggressive exhaust, and few burbles. But for me, it's not enough , and I didn't notice any drone.
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04-02-2013, 04:07 PM	#18
ShocknAwe 1Addict 5380 Rep 9,253 Posts Drives: N54 E82, M57 E70, 964 C4 Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: Charleston iTrader: (22)	Thanks guys. More feedback than I could have hoped for. Going to start off with the Berk Street, then maybe N55 mids. Decided against cutting up my stock mids as it will be much harder to return to stock if I have to. __________________ 2010 E82 1 Series M Clone Hydra Performance augmented OEM+
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11-17-2022, 07:46 PM	#19
SERIK Enlisted Member 5 Rep 45 Posts Drives: 2014 335i xdrive AW Join Date: Sep 2018 Location: Brooklyn, NY iTrader: (0)	Not to create a new thread maybe some one will chime in. I have a n55 1 series running berk race catback exhaust with berk resonated mid pipes, paired with vrsf catless dp. Drone doing past 60 mph on a highway is obnoxiously loud even plastic rattles inside, you cant talk to anyone regardless of windows being up or down. My question is would a berk street muffler solve my drone issues or a stock mid pipe or i should pair berk street axle back with stock mid pipes? Thank you
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11-20-2022, 07:17 PM	#22
twinturbovan Second Lieutenant 220 Rep 223 Posts Drives: 2009 BMW 135i M Sport Vert Join Date: Jun 2019 Location: San Antonio, TX iTrader: (0)	I currently have VRSF Catless Downpipes, Berk Resonated Midpipes and the full Berk Race Exhaust to date. It does have a lot of drone but it doesn't bother me because the car is a a track car. It's super loud and pretty much sounds like a mini GTR. Here's a video of my car on a Dyno and a GTR on a dyno. The Berk full Race Exhaust sounds very similar to a GTR just not as high pitched. Hope this helps anyone whos considering the Race or Street Exhaust.
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