Well, as many of you know, I have
been a big fan of the MRT Aero-Turbine axle-back. It sounds great and
gives a very nice performance gain over the stock muffler. Now last fall we
built a custom off-road pipe for the Mistress. We got a good jump in
performance but the sound from the MRT Aero-Turbine was just plain
unacceptable. As a result I put the stock V6 muffler back on the car
for the winter. The exhaust was very muted and it felt like someone
had pulled the old banana in the tailpipe trick! So this spring I had
MRT put a GT
"take-off" muffler on the Mistress. Sound was improved and performance
was pretty good... But the sound still was not what I was really
looking for...
Then I got a call from Scott at
MRT. MRT had a
new muffler and Scott wanted to know if I would be willing to test out his
new muffler. I jumped at the chance!!! So off I went to
MRT to have the new
MRT axle back put on! |
|
MRT's new axle back! |
Tip doesn't stick out as far |
Gosh that looks good!
Wonder what 2 would look like? |
The real test came when we fired up the Mistress. Scott turned the key
and she roared to life! WOW! The new muffler sounded amazing!
The muffler sounded incredibly deep! The Aero-Turbine seemed to be a
much more raw kind of sound... this was much more mature, deep sounding
exhaust. It was like music to my ears!
Now it was time to road test the new muffler.... So off we went. With the
Aero-Turbine, the sound became totally unbearable at 3,000 RPM. The
whole car would simply just BUZZ! It was like the car was complete
filled with angry hornets! With the new MRT muffler the buzz was
completely gone!
When we first did the off-road pipe, we did install a resonator to help
eliminate the buzz. It helped some, but the Aero-Turbine still buzzed
badly. The new MRT muffler WAS NOT BUZZING AT ALL but we still had the
resonator installed. Sooooo... the next test was to see how the new
muffler would sound without the resonator. Scott removed the resonator
and we went for another test drive!
On the test drive I noticed that while the car did not physically buzz like
it did with the Aero-Turbine, the exhaust note at 3,000 was a bit harsh.
This was most noticeable when there was a large vehicle along side the
Mistress... the harsh sound would echo off the other vehicle so I could hear
it. If I was by myself I really did not notice the harshness. Over all
I was VERY PLEASED with the new muffler!! WOOHOO!
I have been a very strong proponent that V6 Mustangs should be single
exhaust... I also like the theory of "surprise them with a single rather
than disappoint them with duals". After driving around for a week with
the new muffler I convinced myself that this new axle back sounded good
enough that it could support going to duals! So I made a phone call to
Scott and asked him if
MRT could convert the Mistress to a dual exhaust. And of course
Scott said "Certainly!"
So back over to MRT!
We pulled the Mistress into the shop and Scott and Chris got right to work!
|
|
The stock Y-pipe |
Scott and Chris deciding where to cut |
The point of no return! |
| |
Chris tacks things together |
Custom off-road H-pipe! |
To put duals in while keeping the V6 bumper, the driver's side needs to be
"notched".
Scott made a template from the passenger side. |
|
The driver's side is notched! |
Scott testing fitting the new muffler |
Ta-Da! Dual Exhuast! |
|
| So how much of a difference did
adding a 2nd muffler make? It made a BIG difference! The exhaust
sounds VERY DEEP! At startup and idle it does not really sound like a
six... Now from 3000 to 4000 RPM the sound is pretty harsh, but that
is very typical of this kind of setup with this car. Now while it is harsh,
it is tolerable, unlike the Aero-Turbine. And really around town, the
Mistress shifts at about 2900.. so all is good! I suppose some day we
might try the resonators again... but for now, I'm just enjoying the
RUMBLE!!! And here's the part you've been waiting for... Video clips!!!
I did find that my laptop's built-in speakers could not accurately reproduce
the new low tones of the exhaust, so I grabbed my good set of over the ears
headphones... WOW! They reproduced the sound almost perfectly! So you
might want to keep that in mind!
Ok... now for the clips: |
|
Click for Single Exhaust clip |
Click for Dual Exhaust clip |
Watch this page! I will add more info and clips as i can! |
