[radgator1]

As some of you may have seen I posted a previous thread mentioning that I wanted to try to do a simple exhaust mod that would eliminate the most restrictive parts of the OEM exhaust, the secondary cats and stock resonator, but would keep the OEM muffler. So I got a reply from a member (335hopefull) saying he can probably could help me out. I send him a PM and find out he actually owns a muffler shop here in LA!! His name is Izzy and he is a really cool guy and excellent exhaust and muffler technician. Here's a picture of his shop with his 07 IS 350 in front (Pretty sweet car that he got before the 335i's were available, but now he has the bug for wanting a 335i, especially after driving mine with the new exhaust):




So the first time I went to the shop we pulled the car out on the rack and took a look at what we were dealing with, and what would be the best way to go about the job. One thing that you notice right away is that in addition to the small resonator and cats, there are also several areas of the pipe that are crimped and flattened which you can see in this pic and you can also see where the posterior cuts were made:


(Cont)

[radgator1]

But once you get past the crimped and flattened parts of the pipe the rest of the OEM pipe on back to the muffler is actually beautiful mandrel bend and the pipe diameter is a little over 2.25 and very high quality steel. Also, as Izzy pointed out, there is a reason why it bows out so wide before connecting to the muffler and that is to avoid having all that heat right underneath the CV joints (or whatever you call them) and differential.

You can see that better in this pic:



Another issue that Izzy recommended was to not delete the metal plate in the middle of the underside of the car since it is part of the structural frame rigidity. I believe some of the complete aftermarket exhausts require you to remove this plate and also run the pipes a lot closer to the differential but we figured the BMW engineers probably had pretty good reasons so why mess with it.

In this pic you can see the metal plate I'm referring to as well as where the front cuts were made which was just proximal to the cats:


Anyway, Izzy and his top guy worked together and did a REALLY GREAT JOB!! They used 2.5 inch mandrel bend pipe and did the joints end to end rather than stretching them and overlapping. It was actually quite challenging and took a couple hours to get all the connections just right but the outcome was well worth it.

Here are some more pics of the job:

Front cut location:


(Cont)

[radgator1]

Cats and resonator removed:


New pipes in place:


Rear part of the job. Notice that they reconnected (welded) the support brace that was cut off when removing the OEM part. They also didn't remove the tuning thing that says 35HZ on it which may be why there is no droning.




So on to the results. I have to say I love the outcome. The sound is slightly louder and slightly lower than stock at idle but significantly louder and more aggressive at wide throttle. There is abosolutely no droaning that I can detect and I have driven it at many different constant speeds both highway and surface streets. There is an occasional brief machine sound bordering on rasp but nothing like an e46 M3. Very aggressive, kind of like a Larini exhaust.

There is also a significant performance gain. I have an ECU mod (Turbo Tuner) however since it is only approved for offroad use and could put excessive wear on the vehicle, I of course dont keep it connected to the car. But I installed it briefly today in order to fully test the exhaust mod. Let me say that as impressive as the TT is alone, there was an OBVIOUS additional increase in torque and power. Despite 265's in the rear, there is significant issue with traction in 1st and 2nd and the stability contol light is flashing on regularly with less than WOT. In fact I got pulled over on my way home like 1/4 mile from my house. And the cop was like "new BMW huh, these are nice, not quite an M3 though" and Im thinking "So you decided to open her up and see what she can do on this side street, do you know how fast you were going?" And I said not really but probably over 40 (closer to 60 I think ) He says "speed limit is 25 here, you weren't paying attention?" and I told him I was late getting home to take over for my mother-in-law who was babysitting my boys, and also I was listening to my exhaust (then I'm thinking WTF did I say that for??) And he says "it sounded good, not quite like an M3" (dude has a hardon for M3's). He let me off without a ticket though which was cool.

I tried recording some before and after sound clips but messed up the after so will have to re-record that tomorrow and will try to figure out how to get them linked to this thread shortly.

[teknochild]

id be curious what the exhaust sounds like without the mufflers at all actually...

go back and chp it apart again and check

[luckyguyinla]

DUDE i think i need my Piping system redo.. i need to know where his shop at.. so i can come there n fix it. how much he is charging? is he on e90post?

[wj4]

Need sound clips!

[radgator1]

Originally Posted by luckyguyinla

DUDE i think i need my Piping system redo.. i need to know where his shop at.. so i can come there n fix it. how much he is charging? is he on e90post?

PM member 335hopefull, His shop is near Covina right by the 10 and 605

[radgator1]

Originally Posted by wj4

Need sound clips!

I'm working on that. I can also let folks hear it in person if anyone wants to. Just send a PM.

[wj4]

Damn, that's the other valley! When I saw the pix I thought it was in the San Fernando Valley, haha. Too far to drive

[radgator1]

Originally Posted by wj4

Damn, that's the other valley! When I saw the pix I thought it was in the San Fernando Valley, haha. Too far to drive

Driving is what your 335i is for bro To me it was worth it to have someone who is obviously intelligent and actually cares about your car work on it. Afterall we are talking about letting someone pull out a giant saw and start chopping your exhaust apart

[fusionchicken]

could the shop have just customized a full 3'' turbo back exhaust for you? that would add some power for sure can't wait till the day a 335i with tune (e.g. PROcede) + full turbo back is put on the dyno, i wanna see how much it makes...

[Terry335]

Originally Posted by wj4

Damn, that's the other valley! When I saw the pix I thought it was in the San Fernando Valley, haha. Too far to drive

It's easier to drive than to fix a crappy exhaust, some of these non-performance shops leave slag in your pipes and can screw the whole thing up.

[Evo8MRto335I]

Your review is awesome and definately open the path for people like you that are aiming at a more affordable and less restrictrive exhaust.

Just a silly question, how much weight do you think you saved by removing that center resonator and the two cats?.

I am more and more convinced everyday that I would custom do the cat back and I would wait until someone releases a twin downpipe for the car.

Carlos

[wj4]

Originally Posted by Terry Burger

It's easier to drive than to fix a crappy exhaust, some of these non-performance shops leave slag in your pipes and can screw the whole thing up.

True, but I am in the San Fernando Valley...where I know of 3 shops off the top of my head with who are very good in what they do. When I saw "Valley" in the first picture, I automatically thought it was near by.

For those in the 818 wondering where these shops are...these are all very good and have done very professional looking exhaust systems from muscle to exotics...
http://www.fastintentions.com/
This is where E90post member, KuJo, went to get his custom catback done.

http://aeclassic.com/morse/index.htm
This is where E90post member, AlVin went to get his custom exhaust done...he is running no cats at all I believe.

http://www.labreemotorsports.com/
This shop has been catering to the Euro audience for quite a while.

[radgator1]

Originally Posted by Evo8MRto335I

Your review is awesome and definately open the path for people like you that are aiming at a more affordable and less restrictrive exhaust.

Thanks, I wanted to make sure I provided enough pics and text so folks would see exactly what was done and the thought process behind it.

Originally Posted by Evo8MRto335I

Just a silly question, how much weight do you think you saved by removing that center resonator and the two cats?.

Hard to say but there was definitely some weight savings. I'm guessing between 10-15lbs. You would save much more by removing the stock muffler and replacing it with a couple of straight through magnaflo resonators but that would significnatly add to the cost and I haven't been real impressed with the sound clips I have heard so far on the setups that use that design.

Originally Posted by Evo8MRto335I

I am more and more convinced everyday that I would custom do the cat back and I would wait until someone releases a twin downpipe for the car.

If you havent seen it, SuperSprint anounced the release of their Cat back system with downpipes and race cats, an X-pipe and choice of dual or quad tips. The price is around 8500.00 though

I'm real happy with my poor mans solution

[radgator1]

Originally Posted by wj4

True, but I am in the San Fernando Valley...where I know of 3 shops off the top of my head with who are very good in what they do. When I saw "Valley" in the first picture, I automatically thought it was near by.

For those in the 818 wondering where these shops are...these are all very good and have done very professional looking exhaust systems from muscle to exotics...
http://www.fastintentions.com/
This is where E90post member, KuJo, went to get his custom catback done.

http://aeclassic.com/morse/index.htm
This is where E90post member, AlVin went to get his custom exhaust done...he is running no cats at all I believe.

http://www.labreemotorsports.com/
This shop has been catering to the Euro audience for quite a while.

Cool, it's good to have choices. If you go to one of them let us know how it goes. Don't forget though, if you go where I did you are supporting a forum member, enthusiast and soon to be 335i driver (once he dumps that Toyota )

[itsbrokeagain]

Originally Posted by Evo8MRto335I

Your review is awesome and definately open the path for people like you that are aiming at a more affordable and less restrictrive exhaust.

Just a silly question, how much weight do you think you saved by removing that center resonator and the two cats?.

I am more and more convinced everyday that I would custom do the cat back and I would wait until someone releases a twin downpipe for the car.

Carlos

Well supersprint is in the making with a downpipe, but they relocate the rear 02s to the back of the secondary cats, forcing you to buy their mid pipe with the high flow cats for $3800 I think I will wait until someone comes out with a better design.

Also radgator, how come you didn't put an x-pipe in the middle of the car? The Agency Power exhaust (or Arqary or whatever the heck it is) used an H-pipe in the center and it sounded like crap. But I also see you left the stock mufflers in place which probably do a really good job of keeping things quiet.

I'll get a few clips of mine with no exhaust when I get mine into place.

[wj4]

Originally Posted by radgator1

Cool, it's good to have choices. If you go to one of them let us know how it goes. Don't forget though, if you go where I did you are supporting a forum member, enthusiast and soon to be 335i driver (once he dumps that Toyota )

Hey bro, I'm not knocking your shop or anything. If I were in the area, I would definitely be interested, but at least for myself, a 50-60 mile drive each way just to check it out is a bit too much. So I just put up the shops around my area so it may help other members in my area out who are looking into getting this done to.

I'm suppose to meet with both Kujo and Alvin this week to check the exhausts out, I will be recording it on my camcorder as well and posting it online.

And I do agree with you, nearly $8,000 for an exhaust line on a $50,000 car is nuts. Even if I had the money, I would still think twice before ordering it.

[Walked U]

Nice work. Theres not that many places down here that will delete your cats.

Put some sound clips on and let us hear this thing

[jusbechillin]

Can you give us an idea of what it soct you to have this done?

[radgator1]

[QUOTE=itsbrokeagain;823056]Well supersprint is in the making with a downpipe, but they relocate the rear 02s to the back of the secondary cats, forcing you to buy their mid pipe with the high flow cats for $3800 I think I will wait until someone comes out with a better design.

Also radgator, how come you didn't put an x-pipe in the middle of the car? The Agency Power exhaust (or Arqary or whatever the heck it is) used an H-pipe in the center and it sounded like crap. But I also see you left the stock mufflers in place which probably do a really good job of keeping things quiet.

I'll get a few clips of mine with no exhaust when I get mine into place.[/QUOTE]

I didn't really see any benefit to an X-Pipe since it would add complexity to the job and just increase turbulence so worse flow. The only benefit would be to allow equal pressure on each side but as you can see the stock muffler is actually 2 mufflers with a pipe connecting them so you already have the pressure thing taken care of. What I want to do though is see if I can remove the valve in the drivers side tip altogether since it is definitely a little restrictive or at least causing some turbulence for no good reason. When I go back to get some new tips I will probably have Izzy remove it.


Not exactly sure what you are planning in this second part but Im definitely interested in hearing your car with no exhaust. Did you mean no muffler?

[radgator1]

Originally Posted by wj4

Hey bro, I'm not knocking your shop or anything. If I were in the area, I would definitely be interested, but at least for myself, a 50-60 mile drive each way just to check it out is a bit too much. So I just put up the shops around my area so it may help other members in my area out who are looking into getting this done to.

I'm suppose to meet with both Kujo and Alvin this week to check the exhausts out, I will be recording it on my camcorder as well and posting it online.

And I do agree with you, nearly $8,000 for an exhaust line on a $50,000 car is nuts. Even if I had the money, I would still think twice before ordering it.

No, I totally understand you wanting to work with someone local and I look forward to what system you end up with. I just wanted to remind folks in between that if the distance is 6 one and 1/2 dozen the other you might consider Izzy's shop since he is a member and has a real interest in the 335i .