by "Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
Published 03/02/2017 at 20:17
by "Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
Published 03/02/2017 at 20:17
No Tags
STARS: 2
I drive a humble little minivan, a Mazda5 Sport with the 6MT. The performance is fine, and I don’t want to change the muffler for performance reasons. What I want is just a nice raspy exhaust note, with lots of pops and burbles on overrun, much like my old GTI; I loved driving that car in 1st through parking garages and letting off the gas and having the noise set off car alarms.
Where do I go for something like this? I’m sure that there aren’t any performance exhaust systems designed for minivans, and I don’t want to pay to custom fabricate one. I just want a sporty sounding muffler that’ll be a tad on the noisy side. I’ll admit that it’s kind of a silly idea, but what the hell...
"CaptDale - is secretly British" (captdale)
03/02/2017 at 20:20, STARS: 3
Local muffler shop
"Hey Julie" (hey-julie)
03/02/2017 at 20:20, STARS: 2
You can just get a muffler by itself and pay a shop to cut the stock muffler and install yours, you don’t really need a whole kit from a company
"Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies" (jordanwphillips)
03/02/2017 at 20:22, STARS: 1
Does it have a resonator? If so, you can remove that for a little more noise.
"LastFirstMI is my name" (donstone13)
03/02/2017 at 20:23, STARS: 1
Yes, it is crazy. Do it.
"LongbowMkII" (longbowmkii)
03/02/2017 at 20:35, STARS: 1
I want a new muffler for aesthetic reasons. The factory muffler and tip points down relative to the ground which is annoying. Looks like it’s fallen.
"GE90man" (ge90man)
03/02/2017 at 20:37, STARS: 1
no you are not crazy, this sounds like something doug would do
"LongbowMkII" (longbowmkii)
03/02/2017 at 20:38, STARS: 1
Straight pipe
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
03/02/2017 at 20:39, STARS: 0
There is that aspect to this change as well. I like the simple elegance of the two chrome tips sticking out the back of my E34:
"The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock" (jukesjukesjukes)
03/02/2017 at 20:40, STARS: 1
Like my Juke exhaust. Nobody made one for a reasonable price, so I had to have an exhaust shop make one.
"dogisbadob" (dogisbadob)
03/02/2017 at 20:45, STARS: 0
There is nothing wrong with that. The 5 is a sporty minivan, so nothing wrong with a cool exhaust.
"The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock" (jukesjukesjukes)
03/02/2017 at 20:48, STARS: 0
N/A needs the back pressure bro.
"LongbowMkII" (longbowmkii)
03/02/2017 at 20:53, STARS: 0
High end hp > mid range tq because racecar
"gmctavish needs more space" (gmctavish)
03/02/2017 at 20:54, STARS: 1
Ooh style 17s. Very nice looking E34.
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
03/02/2017 at 20:56, STARS: 0
And I do thrash it about like it’s a sporty vehicle, zinging to redline and pulling some g’s in the corners. Compared to other minivans I’ve owned, this thing is a blast to drive; heck, it’s a lot more fun than the E21 320i and the W210 E320 I used to drive. I’ve found this one diving left turn near the office where I can get a touch of oversteer, nicely controlled with a dab of oppo. Fun, fun, fun...
"PotbellyJoe and 42 others" (potbellyjoe)
03/02/2017 at 20:59, STARS: 1
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"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
03/02/2017 at 21:04, STARS: 0
Thank you. I’m quite proud of it, with the subtle yet tasteful visual mods I’ve done over the years (wheels, tint, exhaust, lowered front). I should probably go shadowline on the trim; the stuff around the rear window has faded a tad, so I might as well have it all match.
The wheels are actually style 32s, taken from an E39 540i (see http://www.bmwstylewheels.com/ ), with 235/45R17s up front and seriously wide 265/40R17s in the back. This thing has grip for days. What it doesn’t have, despite the 5MT and various Dinan mods, is any semblance of speed. My Mazda5 also has a 2.5l motor and weighs about the same, roughly 3350lbs, and can spank the 525i despite being down by almost 30 hp. But there’s nothing like the smoooooothness of a great I6 engine (except a V12, of course...)
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
03/02/2017 at 21:08, STARS: 0
Ehh, I would hesitate to make too much extra noise out of a 5. Especially because it’s easy to end up in fart pipe land with an NA 4 banger if you’re not careful.
"gmctavish needs more space" (gmctavish)
03/02/2017 at 21:11, STARS: 0
I support the shadowline idea. Oh right, style 17s are the smaller E36 version of those I think. I don’t have much experience with the M50, but I have lots of experience with other BMW straight sixes, and I love them.
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
03/02/2017 at 21:23, STARS: 1
These are style 17s. And I thought my wheels were a bitch to clean. No no no no no to these in that respect alone, plus I don’t care for the look. I really wanted either the three-piece BBS mesh or the M-System II ‘throwing star’ style wheels, but those were so outrageously expensive I decided to compromise and buy something a tad more affordable (and not worth more than the value of the car itself...)
The performance might be OK if it had an M50 in it, but it doesn’t. Mine is an ‘89, first year in the US, and has an M20B25, 168 hp of pure fury (183 with the Dinan chip, allegedly). It’s a great motor in the E30, but seriously taxed in the E34, and downright horrid if it’s an E34 with an automatic; thankfully I have the 5MT, but that can only do so much. I should have swapped out the rear end for one with 4.11 gears, but that would have made highway driving ridiculous.
"gmctavish needs more space" (gmctavish)
03/02/2017 at 21:33, STARS: 0
Oh I’m not sure what the name of the ones I’m thinking of then.
Ohh yeah, an E34 is a lot of car for an M20.
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
03/02/2017 at 21:36, STARS: 1
Check out that website I linked to. It covers just about every factory BMW wheel option you can imagine.
Yeah, I know the one’s you’re talking about. I think they were common on E36s. Seriously positive offset, looking almost like they were designed for a FWD car. I like the dish on mine, set further back so they stick out closer to the edge of the car. Much nicer that way.
"wafflesnfalafel" (wafflesnfalafel1)
03/02/2017 at 21:40, STARS: 0
The Borla cat back package for the 3 sounds nice, but it probably would need to be adapted to the 5...
"XJDano" (xjdano)
03/02/2017 at 21:41, STARS: 0
For a 4.0 Jeep I really liked my flowmaster muffler.
I added one to each. A 40 & 50 series. The 40 was on my manual beater. The 50 is on my trail, project, toy. I liked the 40 better as it was more deeper and growly. (Probably not a word)
The 50 was fine but to do it over again I’d do a 40. I still have it from when I scrapped my manual.
Are there any cat back system for the 5 you can add on? Or just looking for a muffler?
"C62030" (c62030)
03/02/2017 at 21:43, STARS: 0
How the hell do Mazda do it? Why hasn’t another company pulled something similar? Mazda is criminally underrated these days. It’s a minivan.
"Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious" (shour)
03/02/2017 at 21:47, STARS: 0
Since the 5 is built on the 3 platform, with the 3's drivetrain, wouldn’t it be highly likely that most (if not all) of the aftermarket options for the 3 and Speed3 be ready to install as is?
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
03/02/2017 at 21:48, STARS: 0
I really haven’t looked to see if such a system exists, but I’d rather just change out the muffler in order to keep the costs in check. I’m only interested in the noise, so any performance gains from a properly-engineered cat back setup wouldn’t really matter to me. I’ve never known an exhaust system to make much of a difference without other breathing mods to the engine (cylinder head work, CAI system), and I don’t have any plans for those.
Do you have a shop in the area that you used for the Flowmasters? I tried going down to a highly-rated muffler shop down in South City a couple of weeks ago to see what they could do for me, but the place was jam packed and I didn’t feel like waiting around.
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
03/02/2017 at 21:51, STARS: 0
It may be the same basic platform, but I think that there are length and component location differences that would prevent a simple bolt-up of exhaust parts for a 3. I’ll have to check on a Mazda-specific website to see if that’s the case.
"plak424" (plak424)
03/02/2017 at 21:54, STARS: 1
Get a mazda3 exhaust from the same generation. If I remember correctly the 5 is based on the 3 chassis. They actually look pretty close. Just get the cat back portion of a corksport and you’re in business.
Mazda3
Mazda5
"XJDano" (xjdano)
03/02/2017 at 22:06, STARS: 0
Way back in ‘02 (I think) I used a place in Festus. But that was a cat back custom because I backed the tip into a stump, bent the stock exhaust so it was rubbing on the driveshaft. Back then it was a Daily driver.
‘05-6? I just asked for a flowmaster for my other Jeep and they put in the 40.
Affton Muffler & Brake Stop
8600 Gravois Rd, St. Louis, MO 63123
(314) 638-1764
https://goo.gl/maps/4WXrkLSGfpR2
Both shops I used on recommendations of others in Jeep club.
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
03/02/2017 at 22:19, STARS: 1
I agree with you 100%, but there isn’t a whole lot of money to be made catering to the enthusiast on the lower end of the market.
Years back, when I drove BMWs, I was looking for something practical and sporty, but in their minds the two were mutually exclusive. The salesman even told me that the typical wagon buyer, a vast majority of whom were women, didn’t care about performance and thus they wouldn’t offer a wagon with a manual transmission in the US; my mother would beg to differ (she frequently got speeding tickets in a VW Vanagon, if that tells you what kind of driver she is), but she, like me, is a minority in this regard. Same thing with the typical minivan buyer - in theory , at least according to the brain-dead marketing departments, they’re looking for something safe and practical, with driving pleasure not even ranking on the list of priorities.
I once owned a Ford Windstar (don’t laugh, it was free), and it was just a dull, soul-sucking appliance, with not one iota of enjoyment to be derived from the driving experience. Needless to say, not a tear was shed when I sold it, and I happily pocketed the $350 I got for it knowing it was now someone else’s problem and would drive them to new depths of automotive apathy.
The way I discovered this version of the 5 is somewhat amusing. A friend and I were at an auto show and were getting a bit tired from all the walking around. We agreed to stop at the next booth that had a minivan and relax in it, feigning interest in the vehicle in order to sit for a little while and rest our weary feet. The booth we stumbled across was Mazda’s, and so we stretched out in the new for 2012 Mazda5. I actually liked it, and once I found out you could get it with a 6-speed manual I was sold. When I relocated across the country a few months later and needed a new car I knew exactly what I wanted, found it, and bought it. Well, I was considering a Jetta Sportwagen TDI, but they weren’t dealing and Mazda was, and I ended up getting my car for about 20% off of MSRP, which came out to nearly $10K less than the Jetta I was looking at.
I love my 5 and I will never get rid of it. Over the last few decades I’ve had all sorts of fancy machinery from just about every German auto manufacturer (Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, VW), but it is this simple little minivan that makes me incredibly happy. Considering the rarity of this vehicle I feel that I got incredibly lucky to have needed a new car when I did, and I think that I couldn’t have made a better choice.
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
03/02/2017 at 22:21, STARS: 0
Thanks for the info! I get off work tomorrow at noon and am heading down to the Costco in South County, so I can probably swing by this shop on the way down there.
"plak424" (plak424)
03/02/2017 at 23:09, STARS: 0
Actually even cheaper, just go for the OEM Mazdaspeed axle back. Even cheaper and OEM quality with a little more grumble.
"71MGBGT Likes Subarus of Unusual Colors" (adamprotter)
03/02/2017 at 23:30, STARS: 0
OK, so I know that there are a bunch of responses here, but this might be good for you. Adjustible mufflers, loud when you want it for fun but quieter for kids and and such. I have them on my STi and I like them http://www.xforceusa.com/products/varex-mufflers