Went to Auto Tuning House Friday and spoke with the guys a while before working on the car.
Started with the downpipe. Straight forward swap of the OEM and Sport Cat. Love the finish of the Downpipe and the fit is spot on, no issues.
Bypass was a whole different story once more.
Will show some pics and then summarize my take on everything.
When we pulled the old Bypass and laid on the ground we measured up the new one against it to see if we found any variances and pics below circle what I found.
Old Bypass you can notice how the end that meets with the car is flat, this is the one that measured 2.75”
The new Bypass sent has a lump here, when I spoke with Fabspeed the first time we discussed all this it was noted that the end tube was supposed to be expanded to 3” to match the OEM piping after being built and before shipping, but this was something apparently not done with the one I initially got, maybe slipped Quality Control process.
During the initial install the mismatch of 2.75” Bypass and 3” OEM caused the clamp to not seat properly and it actually crimped my OEM piping which had to be worked to be able to straighten out. I don’t have pics handy but I believe the shop took a couple. There is a muffler shop in one of the hangers next to ATH but the piping was bent badly and not much could be done by the muffler shop so Will (ATH owner) ended up heating the OEM pipe and opening up with one of those expander tools for piping.
We thought this would take care of the fitment once straightened and new Bypass on but it didn’t. ATH spent hours trying to fit this straight and it wouldn’t fit as expected.
Couple pics showing variances between the old and new bypass can be seen below.
In these following pics the top is the new Bypass, bottom old.
Notice how I lined up the Y joint and you can see the new Bypass has the solder points more towards the outside, it also lacks the Fabspeed label.
When comparing the end portion you can notice the lump on the new one making it match the OEM sizing. Also notice how the old one had three pieces of piping soldered together whereas the new one only has two.
These build variances might be the reason why they still sit a bit low (the shorter hangers I had purchased did not help much, tried and ended up putting back OEMs in), this could also be the reason why the Bypass seems to be shifted towards the passenger side.
Notice the space between tips and inner rear diffuser:
All in all I am happy with the sound but very disappointed in the fit.
I do appreciate Fabspeed’s willingness to try to make this work and sending out a new Bypass but my take is that these are still one off’s being built by orders but seeing the variances between both systems it shows the build is nowhere near consistent.
My final take on this (If I had to rate this on a 1-10 scale);
Downpipe:
Finish – 10
Fit – 10
Sound – 10 (Amazing deep sound, very different than just the Bypass)
Price – 7 (Sport Cats are never cheap, but this downpipe does deliver sound and you can feel the power)
Bypass:
Finish – 7 (First one had the Fabspeed Label which was visible from the rear, new one was missing this detail)
Fit – 4 (Only way I see this fitting properly is if you have it placed exactly where you want with an exhaust jig and then have a muffler shop solder it directly to the OEM piping)
Sound – 8 (Bypass itself sounds great, had this setup for a month and a half)
Price – 6 (Previously had rated at a 10 but was before all the issues that went by, took down to a 6 since I would definitely be willing to pay more to have something that fit perfectly)
All in all I disappointed with the fit and finish and it’s mostly due to being so happy about the sound and power change I could feel. Would love to see the fit match the sound and performance.
The car now breaks traction in second gear, before the downpipe the DSC would just let you slip tires for half or one second, now struggles to control the wheel spin for a couple seconds, you can also feel the car pulling nicely.
I will be taking the car to the dyno first week of March and I will be able to see any gains. There are plenty baseline dyno charts floating around, I just want to see where it is after the downpipe.