Audio of a different sort
After my buddy Mike got his ’08 coupe with the factory NPP exhaust option it was obvious that it was time to make my Vette finally SOUND like a Vette. The factory exhaust was extremely quiet, only coming alive at all at WOT (wide open throttle for you non-gearheads). So the search began for what to do. I really liked idea of being able to go from “mild to wild” but the NPP mufflers are extremely pricey and can be hard to get. So I wound up putting a full Z06 exhaust system on.
Factory Z06 take-off mufflers from a wreck
LG Motorsports Z06 Long Tube headers (with cats)
Elite Engineering’s 3/8″ tunnel plate with thermal blanket
A whole lot of sweating, swearing and bleeding later… the results.
The headers and some of the parts that were removed.
Cat back & tunnel plate (all 36 screws!!) removed, the pipes are the cats which were next to come off.
The requisite offering of flesh to the Car Gods.
Took it for the first drive yesterday and WOW, what a difference. Even with the bypass muffler pipes closed the system sounds great, a nice compromise between stock & “wild.” But open those pipes.. and good lord is that a sweet sound! The system doesn’t have the decel burble/pop like the NPP of Mike’s system, but it does rumble nicely. My guess is that because of the headers and 3″ pipes from the collectors to the mufflers there’s too much flow to get the backpressure that creates that burble. Regardless, I love the way it sounds and it doesn’t drone at all on the highway, which was very important to me since I roadtrip the car quite a bit. It’s definitely louder than stock on the highway, but just part of the background noise, not annoying. There is also a noticable seat-of-the-pants power gain!
