996 NA Exhaust design

Hi I am a newbie to Rennlist, still havent even figured out where to insert my car description so it comes up at the bottom of my post, so a little help here would be nice. I just bought a 1998 996 Tiptronic recently, and i really love it. I had a string of 964s when i was younger, (one had the incredible German Auto supercharger kit and Ruf 2 wheels - amazon green Bad Boy kind of car!!) I am really enjoying having a 9 again. The car rides well, runs well, but really sounded a bit like a sewing machine when i got it to be honest. I pulled out the cats and replaced with resonators which made the car come alive (has 92 000km ~ 50 000 miles). Needed a bit of sound as well, so i did the "Gillette hack" and now it sounds like a sewing machine on steroids! Loving it more and more. Quite a symphony happening out in the rear. Hardly use the stereo now. I would really like to send it in for a custom exhaust fabrication similar to the afterhours system, but with one straight through muffler on each side, not two. Has anyone tried this? How did it sound? What diameter tubing did you use? Also, has anyone had any experience with or can offer any advice on joining the two sides of the exhaust together before the cats. How does this affect the sound in a 996? How does it affect the power? What is the effect on the torque? I am looking for a deep and powerful sound. Not the raspy Gundo hack sound. (to me it seems as if the Gundo hack impersonates a hole in the muffler, no disrespect intended) I had done this pipe bridge on a 3251 BMW some time ago and it really sounded good and smoothed the torque delivery too. ( I had joined the two exhaust tubes together with a 2" pipe very close to the two collectors.) If only i could get my 9er to sound like the Nissan GTR (HKS exhaust) i heard on the beachfront this weekend!!! Goosebumps stuff! (sigh)

Honestly, here is the way I see it. There are 2 reasons to do this yourself or have a shop do it themselves. One is money, and that you're trying to be cheap and save some, the other is that the shop you take it too would know more than the after market bolt on exhaust manufactures. So as far as the afterhours system, yes, a shop could more than likely do that themselves with some small glass packs or cherry bombs - however I bet you that the price would be similar when all is said and done. So at that point why not buy something that would just bolt on and be pretty close to what you want? (This is my choice for a muffler too, depending on how my gutting project goes). As far as the cross pipes or whatever (it's early for me to think today), yes, again you could have a shop bend and weld something up however other companies produce something that could be what you're looking for that will bolt right on and be ready to go. I'm all for people trying stuff, and I will do stuff like this too from time to time, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of room to work with on these cars, there does seem to be a lot of after market products, and I'm not sure it's worth really trying to reinvent the wheel here when something will pretty much bolt right on and be about the same price as a custom shop or good exhaust shop.

Thank you Chiamac, appreciate the honest response. Being out here in Africa means that we pay roughly 2 to 3 times the price that you pay for aftermarket goodies, and our currency is very weak against the dollar so the average exhaust system costs more than an average annual salary here. Having said that, i do earn a bit more than the average salary. :-) We also have huge delays with import parts and freight/customs issues, hence the temptation to make up an alternative locally.

Sorry, perhaps i should add, I am from South Africa

Ahhhh In that case you have templates online via the products sold and a good shop should be able to do most anything that's out there. Personally, since I'm on the cheaper side, I'd just leave the cats out with a test pipe and leave the rest of the cross pipes or whatever you want to call them alone. Sure, there are better crossovers out there in the terms of the ones that loop around, but why spend the money making something when you already have ones that work? =) As far as the mufflers, the problem I see is the space they need to fit in. So even if you had one pack rather than two, I would think the pipe would still need to curl around and at that point why not put two in? I would think that if afterhours was selling them for that much/little that it's not difficult to fabricate or wouldn't be too bad for a shop given that you can find packs that small. The diameter would be the same as it is on the rest of the system, or at least that's what I'd do if I did this.

I can get slimline resonator tubes similar to the ones on the afterhours system. They tame the sound somewhat but dont take the fun away. I am not planning to use big mufflers. Thanks for the advice

"Sorry, perhaps i should add, I am from South Africa" ^Hahahahaha^ ! I thought the RSA was a dead giveaway !