As part of a planned series of upgrades for my 2001 WRX, I'm planning to start with a upgrade of the exhaust system. I'm happy to go for a complete de-cat all the way through and was looking for some advice/experiences from others. I understand that the engine does benefit from a free-flow exhaust BUT I really want to try and avoid anything which is ridiculously noisy! My car is nice enough as it is and I only interested in performance gains, not bodywork mods!

Any ideas/suggestions on how I can increase power without looking like Barry-Bolt-On, the weekend H*lfords boy...?

Many thanks.
Marc.

 

Very easy mate you have a few options, Sports cat a good one will see near BHP return as a full de cat and wont be as loud. Keep the middle resonated section in (no performance gains from removing this). Most of the noise is due to the back box, So you could go with standard STI, Prodrive or some of the leading manufacturers have silent boxes or get a custom one made to your spec its actually not that expensive. Anyway hope this helps

 

Cheers mate I shall weigh up my options.