LS4 swap begins

[Bake82]

On 5/12/2024 at 10:21 AM, carkhz316 said:

Sorry I didn't respond sooner. I don't get online as much these days. Anyway, that question is hard for me to answer because I can't comment to the expense and value aspect as I just wanted to always do the LS4 swap. I didn't have any real budget or horsepower goal in mind. I simply wanted to do it to prove to myself that I could. If someone is going for straight power vs cost, it would probably be cheapest to turbo a 3800, and blow the LS4 away. But for me, yes, it was 'worth' it to just do it and have it work. 

that’s totally fair.   And I totally get the desire and challenge and that being worth it alone!!
 

Not sure I’ll tackle it but I think it’s awesome it can be done and with the 5 speed too!   

[carkhz316]

And a few years later and I'm finally building a proper exhaust for it. I bought a universal kit off Amazon and put this together this weekend, along with a couple used Borla mufflers that were given to me. It's louder than I was expecting, but is mostly just too much bass and rumble for my liking. I attribute it to the 3 inch pipe and straight through design of the mufflers. I have since ordered a smaller inline chambered muffler that I'm going to install where the factory cat/ resonator were installed to see if it tones down the deep rumble a bit. Aside from that, does anyone know where I can get new or like new OEM looking exhaust tips for this car or have recommendations for a lookalike? I'd certainly appreciate any suggestions but ideally would like to copy the original style.

[carkhz316]

Exhaust v1.2. I wasn't happy with how loud it turned out despite the mufflers. I'm sure the 3" exhaust isn't quieting it down at all, but the mufflers are Borla Pro XS which are supposed to be a "quieter" muffler. So, I added a inline chambered muffler from Remco which toned it down a bit. It sounds less like a dumpy bass drum now. The reason for the 3" is that I plan on going turbo next year and figured I'd set myself up for it. 

[55trucker]

The larger the dia of the pipe the deeper the tone of the drone.

In my opinion anything from Magnaflow or Borla will have a considerable amount of *throat* to them.

I personally like to be able to hear the radio at something a little over a whisper.....

[carkhz316]

There's surprisingly very little drone, and it's only really noticeable at idle and light acceleration. That said, every ls4 with modified exhaust has this same dumpy bassy tone to it. I attribute a lot of it to the crappy exhaust manifolds, as headers sound ok ok them.