I have a Stebro with that kind of tip and it looks great at 3".

 

I currently have a Rogue and I like everything about it except the drone. Deep mellow throaty sound, 3" round slash cut tip. It has a canister muffler but if an oval cuts the drone that that's good.

If you can fix the drone, then I'll consider switching.

Thanks for the work you are doing

 

Here's a pic of the Rogue - I had one of those too - looks great - no longer made - maybe the drone issues did it in?

 

Wait, what?

 

The stock system has a bolt-on tip. It is attached to what is probably only a 2 or 3" long pipe coming out of the muffler itself.

Ricers like to look like they have 4" systems hanging off their rides; the JCW / Milltek crowd all but demands the slash cut; and there are those among us who want to still be welcome at family gatherings.

 

We've had a pretty bad expierience in the past with having tips "fall off" with a design like that. Customers don't tighten the tip down or forget to tighten the tip down and they write it off as a manufacturers defect and then we've gotten a bad wrap as having exhausts that "fall apart". So to avoid that I think we're probably gonna stick with the 3" tip and see if I can get a silencer for it as well.

 

This is very interesting. Let me see if I understand your generalization. Anyone who doesn't care for the stock soda can exhaust tip is a ricer....right?

I, for one, am hoping for a simple, plain, straight or slant cut 3" tip. I've owned 4 non-stock systems so far and none of them have been JCW or Milltek and the largest tip so far has been 3" (unless the Helix was 3.5....can't remember). The one I've stuck with happens to be the R-Speed and I've kept it because I like the sound and (perceived) performance despite the fact that it has a rather stock looking tip. By the way, what's the diameter of the stock tip?

 

Gentlemen (And Ladies), please.. lets keep this Civil. I don't want this thread to get into assumptions and what not. I'm sure it wasn't meant to be a "generalization" or offensive in nature. Lets just stick with the matter at hand please. A productive thread is a well mannered thread.

With that said, it seems that we're going to be going with the 3" slash tip. Would you guys want a silencer with that? I'm not sure if that can be done, but I can see if I can or not. If you guys don't want one though, then I don't even have to ask.

 

Can you give us a better idea of what the silencer does. How does it effect performance. Do you have any audio clips?

 

Right you are.

 

No. JCW and Milltek seem to have popularized the slash tip on the MINI, and remember: I take my clues from a conversation with the folks at RSpeed.

For the rice comment, look no further than Helix's site, with the beer can tip. Or, you can ask the good contributors at www.riceornot.com. Folks around here with enormous exhausts tend to be really skinny guys who wear too much gold. They also tend to drive Hondas.

I'm not trying to offend: I'm trying to lend insight to a product that should also not offend. There are plenty of fart-cannons on the market already; how about some genuinely performance-oriented parts for the Cooper (and not just another "sound kit")?

BTW: I reserve my right to generalize and pass judgment on anything I choose.

 

What sort of time frame till we could buy a Megan Racing MC exhaust? I was about to buy an exhaust this past weekend, but got delayed. Thanks for considering making a piece for our cars (non-S).

 

I'm pretty skinny... and one of my other cars is a 1990 Honda CRX. But that's just me.

What a silencer basically does is insert a flat plate into the tip with a smaller pipe in the middle. In this case it would probably be a 2" pipe considering the piping will be 2.25" normally. What that does is basically eliminate the resonance of the tip (which quiets the car down substantially and gives it a higher tone) and it also gives a little bit more backpressure.

I myself don't use tips... ever, but a lot of people tend to like them.

The thing is though.. that 3" is not that big at all and so I really question the need for a tip. However, this is an exhaust for YOU GUYS.. so that's why I need to know what you guys want.

Time Frame... this is the sucky part. Remember, this is the planning stages. I'd need a Mini to come to our exhaust shop in So Cal.. and then from there we'd send that out to the factories to be Prototyped.

30-45 Days later we'd recieve a Hard-Prototype into which we'd call that SAME Mini in to get the exhaust fitted. If the exhaust fits 100%... then he/she drives home with their new exhaust and we then tell the factories to start production. 30-45 days later, we'd have our first shippment in. Usually 20-Pieces are the first shippment, but I'd have to see how this goes here on the forum.

We're basically down to this....

2.25", Resonator, Flanges, Oval Muffler, 3" Round Slash-Cut Tip.

I keep asking you guys how long you think the resonator should be... and I've yet to get any responces. Too big of a resonator and the exhaust gets weighed down and far too mellow. Too small and then it has the "Boom" you guys speak of.

 

I always thought of resonators as something used to compensate for negative effects of the rest of an exhaust system. I imagined system designers taking educated guesses about which components will work best for a particular application and then having to rely on trial and error testing to hone in on a good match, with resonators of various size/shape used if necessary.

What size? In my mind you have to have actual test/trial results to know. So, I obviously know nothing about resonators and therefore can't even hazard a guess. The best I could do is measure what I have.

 

Basically what I'm asking is from you guy's experience, what does it take to eliminate that boom? Are we talkin about a resonator that takes up the entire mid-pipe or something that's only 6" long?

Resonators simply have the purpose of "confusing" the sound. Although there is SLIGHT backpressure, the main downside is the weight from the extra pipe, packing, and other inner workings.

 

After a week of driving around without a resonator, I'd say I could live forever without one. The drone was easily beaten by a little bit of padding in the boot, and now I only hear it when I really get on it.

However, if I may, I'll say that the audience whose attention you've captured can only speak from experience, and very few (if any) of us have any knowledge of resonator-science.

 

The thing is... a lot of customers are pretty picky about their cars. It's not a bad thing, it's just a thing; a challenge if you will. It just means we gotta be more precise with our products and also find a Middle-point that people will like.

The science of resonators is pretty simple for the most part. The core is perforated; but the holes are small enough not to disrupt the flow of the exhaust gasses. The physics of exhaust gasses is that they do not travel through the pipe so much as they travel along the walls of the pipe; which is why the bends are important. Exhaust gasses don't make bends easily and pretty much flow over the holes in the core easily which means not that much of a power loss.

Sound however does not travel in a straight line, and travels through the holes in the perforated core and get "baffled" by the core packing.

 

Of all the details of exhaust design I've seen discussed on this forum, length of the resonator isn't one of them. I'm not sure you're going to get much of an answer from us on that, especially since we just drive "regular" Coopers, so we obviously care nothing for performance, efficiency, or attitude.

Honestly, avoidance of the drone at highway speeds is probably the number one thing that most of your customers are probably looking for in an exhaust. Beyond that, I think we're basically just looking for a nice, meaty, deeper exhaust tone without crossing the line into being obnoxious. I don't think any of us are under the impression that we're going to see more than a handful of ponies gained. For that reason, I don't think that going with a lighter, louder muffler just to save a few pounds is the way to go.

I've got the Milltek on my car, and for me it satisfies those requirements perfectly. As far as introducing a new exhaust into the market goes, I'd say that there's a niche available for something slightly louder than the Milltek but quieter and less drone-y than the Borla and Helix.

So when can we expect sound clips to be available?

 

Chrisneal hit it on the head in regards to the resonator size.

My second most import consideration is great sound - nice and deep when getting on the power, and if that can be done w/o a resonator all the better for weight savings. Just don't want an exhaust I hate at highway speed - lots of drone.

My first consideration is price. I think a niche is also if you can do it in the $400 range, instead of the $540+ range of Borla, Milltek, Helix, and Supersprint (except for their non-resonator race exhaust which is $450 range). I was about to buy the MyMini sport exhaust, but got delayed.

I also do not like huge company bagging, like MOMO stuff. Looking at your cat backs on your web site it does not look like you do that generally. What is the story on burnt tips – they look neat.

Per of Grassroots Motorsports magazine found “The numbers were *very* similar for all of the aftermarket systems” in regard to performance, so just keep yours in the ball park. See this thread for more and maybe insights to what we are looking for if you have not already read it;
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=56428

 

The biggest thing about us is that we don't mark up rediculously. I mean, in all honesty.. we have to make a profit from cost. Of course, that's why business is business. But we've always kept our costs low and our quality up. Our most expensive exhaust system is for the Accord V6 and 300ZX's. Those go for about $600.00 MSRP. The thing is those are HUGE dual exhausts with a lot of bends and resonators.

The Mini Cooper doesn't require that. I can GUARANTEE you... that the exhaust will be between $350.00 - $390.00 MSRP. And you will be able to find them cheaper than that from our Distributors like Outmotoring.

Outmotoring is a great website and Aaron is an honest guy who has great business ethics. He's really out there to just give good parts to the community, so I'd just like to say that it's been an honor and a pleasure to deal with Aaron.

But I digress... you guys will be lookin at...

$350.00 - $390.00 MSRP.

What do you guys think? Lemme know.

About the burnt Titanium tips... yeah, that's an option. But during shipping sometimes they get bumped and the rivets come loose and they rattle or even FALL OFF if you don't get to them in time. The repair isn't hard, just pop out the old Rivets and re-Rivet them. Would you guys be intrested in that? And yeah... we go easy on the Badging. Just one etched on the tip and that's that.

 

Also check the GRM write-up here. Besides the quote in Rollin's post I really like "The exhausts, however, had healthy 5 horsepower and 6 lb.-ft. of torque gains from about 3500 to 5000 rpm." and speaking of the MyMINI exhaust as an example "... you can see the strong mid-range bump." That's the NA MINI sweet spot!

The price range ($350-390 msrp) will definitely get folks to look. Some skeptics will insist on paying higher prices in the "you get what you pay for" spirit, but you can't please everyone.

I'm personally not the least interested in burnt titanium.

The guys are right about us not knowing much about resonators, but if you want some examples of working models the resonators on both my Stebro and R-Speed are 12".

 

The combination of the piping size and bends should really emphasize the mid range of the Mini. If we were to go with a 2.5 you'd see more of a high-range advantage, but it doesn't suit the Mini.

Unfortunately we often feel the effects of having a lower price. That's just something that comes at us from time to time. I mean, when I first started tuning and workin on cars... I didn't have money, I was just a kid. And then as I grew older... man... I STILL didn't have enough money to tune cars. And so it was just thing where... in an industry where name brands dominate, it's hard to come up.

If you have expensive parts like the others... people go "Well, why pay that if I can just go with so and so?"

If you keep the prices low... "No, I'd rather save money and go with so and so because they're a trusted name brand."

If people don't buy from us, then how is anyone ever gonna trust us? We're just trying to be real with people and offer them quality parts at a better price.

When people use the excuse that our prices are too low that they're uncomfortable buying from us... I just shrug and go... "I'm sorry...."

I just hope that with time that the Mini Cooper community will grow to trust Megan Racing... and that we can work together like we did in this thread to just get more quality parts out there. Ya kno?

I'm just a tuner... i've been workin on cars since I was a kid... my dad taught me how to do brake jobs on cars when I was 7. And now that I'm older, I'm just tryin to get parts out not for the money... but for the love of the car.

I just ordered out my own Mini Cooper S this last weekend... so if you think the Mini is just another car for me, then think again. This car has amazing potential in my eyes, and I just want to get parts out there to help realize that potential.

 

Congrats! What did you order and how long is the wait?

 

I don't know how long the wait is exaclt.. I just know... WAY TOO LONG!

 

Aright, enough about me. Here's where it sits... all in agreement say I. If anyone disagrees.. speak now or forever hold your peace.

2.25" Piping.

Resonator 12-18"

Flanges.

Oval Muffler.

Neck after Muffler to Tip.

3" Round Tip. Slash-Cut.

WHAT SAY YOU's?