Anyone Else have Soul Performance? Drone?

Does anyone here have a Soul Performance catback system on their Cayman , and if so are you getting drone? I recently installed one on my car, and have unfortunately found it to be quite a bit louder than expected and very drone heavy under 3K RPM when under load. It also makes a rather unpleasant sound under engine braking circumstances such as coming down a hill, which I can only describe as rather flatulent sounding, and has set off my neighbor's factory car alarm without ever touching the gas on a cold start. We are in an underground parking garage, so there is quite a bit of reinforcement of the sound from that, but it's still just a bit much. It does look very nice, has a very nice sound above 3K RPM, and in an odd twist has somehow solved my particular car's tendency to stall unexpectedly in slow speed maneuvering, so it's not exactly without it's merits. The thing is they lean pretty heavy on the no drone thing in their advertising and that is pretty far from my experience so far. Can anyone else comment from experience?

I added Soul Performance catted headers a few months back to my Carnewal exhaust. There was a slight drone with the Carnewal and stock headers. The Soul Performance has zero drone. Zero drone!

Hey sorry to hear about this situation - something doesn't sound right here - let's resolve it quickly! We have a few ideas of what may be going on and we'd like to chat with you on the phone to discuss your car, the conditions, and come up with an action plan. The stalling is another issue that is of concern to us and we'll try to cover that as well. [phone removed] Once we get everything figured out, we'll share the outcome with the forum. If you're ever having any issues or have any concerns or questions - we're always available to chat with you. Don't hesitate, reach out to us - your happiness is the most important part of our business. -Mike

I replaced a 'custom' system on my 06 CS MT with the SOUL cat back. With the old system, I was literally in fear of early morn tickets on a rather large climb up from the Mohawk River. Overall the SOUL system eliminated the excessive 'drone' although probably any exhaust can be held at a drone rpm. Once cut loose, the SOUL system sang a wonderful howl-tune! I have since added one of the first cat-headers they offered. The whole system is wonderful. Precise build, top quality materials and superior customer service. I might have a look at why your engine was acting up with the old exhaust, cat condition, mixture curve, etc will have an effect on sound produced. So yes I can get the SOUL to drone some but I'd estimate a 80% decrease from the previous straight-thru system. I wish I could start her and make a recording but we are buried in %#$& snow lately! -J

My Soul headers + cat back exhaust have virtually no drone. Before I felt like my fillings were going to fall out with the low range drone.

My feeling is that non-optimal O2 sensors (or old) can play a role in Drone. Would it be worth doing an ECU "handover" to check if it changes the symptoms?

After months of procrastinating due to other issues taking precedence(TDY, crappy German winter weather, family visits, moving, etc), I finally called Soul today and spoke to John Gaydos, whom I had emailed back and forth with prior to purchase. He was very accommodating. According to Soul, they have seen this problem a few times and it has always traced back to one of two issues. Either a leaking gasket at the header input from the engine, or a damaged catalytic converter , which allows the cat element to vibrate internally. The later problem is apparently nearly inaudible with factory exhaust, but becomes an issue with a more free flowing exhaust. John has agreed to send out some replacement header gaskets in order to eliminate that as a concern, free of charge. If that is unsuccessful, then they offered to send out some replacement factory headers with good cats for minimal cost, or offer an unspecified discount on their replacement headers with built in cats. I will likely go the factory replacement route if it comes to that as I suspect, as currently their product is not yet TUV certified and I have an inspection coming up in a couple months. A vibrating cat element could possibly also account for the strange gurgling/farting noise on engine braking, as it does sound quite a bit like something vibrating. We shall see.

Interested to hear the results. I plan on doing exhaust + headers down the road, good on Soul for standing behind their product.

A car running richer will drone more, all other things being equal. Driving after a cold start will drone more and then decrease as the car + exhaust come up to temp.

I purchased a set of long tube Soul catless headers that are connected to my Milltek muffler and tips. I was concerned about the CEL, but John assured me that Scott at Softronics will take care of that issue. I never had the CEL light, due mostly from an old Softronic Flash that I had no idea was on my car. In fact, my car had the old Softronic race package of a GT3 RS plenum and a 78 mm GT3 throttle body. Scott at Softronics, undated the fash with a mega file to tie all of my mods together producing smooth additional torque and hp. The engine now has a urgent feel and sound to exhaust. No drone. Not sure why that is as I do not have cats to smooth out the exhaust. I know that this combo really works to increase torque out of 2nd gear turns that in the past seemed a flat spot. Not any more. Just pure pull by my M97 engine . So this combo really works well. Thanks again John and Scott.

I purchased a set of long tube Soul catless headers that are connected to my Milltek muffler and tips. I was concerned about the CEL, but John assured me that Scott at Softronics will take care of that issue. I never had the CEL light, due mostly from an old Softronic Flash that I had no idea was on my car. In fact, my car had the old Softronic race package of a GT3 RS plenum and a 78 mm GT3 throttle body. Scott at Softronics, undated the Motronics flash with a mega file which targets all of my mods including higher volumetric efficiency from the throttle body/plenum and headers, retuning the existing intake resonance valve, fuel mapping (93 octane, altitude and air density), vario plus cam and ignition. The engine now has a urgent feel and exhaust sound. No drone. Not sure why that is as I do not have cats to smooth out the exhaust, but my local repair shop suggested thickness of the long tube header pipe will smooth out the noise/drone. I know that this combo really works to increase torque out of 2nd gear turns that in the past seemed a flat spot. Not any more. Just pure pull by my M97 engine . So this combo really works well. Thanks again John and Scott.

Glad to hear the hardware and software combo made a major difference! -Mike

Apologies if anyone out there is waiting on my results. I have been a bit too busy to find time to replace the gaskets the last few weeks due to taking leave and a couple trips for work. Also have been waiting until I have all of the parts on hand to do a third radiator addition, but have run into a problem there, as nobody who makes a kit is willing to ship to my address. I thought I had everything ordered, but it turned out that my grill adapter is not the correct one, so I need to find the correct part # and get the correct one before I can do the third radiator install, at which time it should be easy to swap out the exhaust gaskets. On that front, does anyone happen to know whether I am likely to break any of the install hardware and need replacements when I do that job? A good bit of the hardware on the factory catback system broke when it was removed, but in that case the Soul kit came with brand new hardware so it wasn't an issue. In this case, I will just be opening it up, replacing the gaskets, and buttoning everything back up. Just wondered if I should order so replacement header bolts, etc?