Installed my Alta R56 catback last weekend. Great looking system, here are some pictures:





As you can see the 3" pipe is huge compared to the stock pipe.This is a heavy duty, high polished system.
Bad news is because it' so much bigger, it weighs more. I weighed stock as 26 lbs and the Alta at 28 lbs.

Borrowed some exhaust cutters from Auto-zone for free. They made the cutting easy. Just cut a few inches behind the 2nd cat. The V-bands make adjusting simple. Need to push the heat shield up and to the sides to make room for the larger pipe.




The tips look super!



As far as the sound, it's very quite. Almost too quite, about the same as stock, hard to believe with such a big pipe. Adam says it will get louder, I hope so. Only have 65 miles on it, but it does seem to be getting louder. Nice lower tone. I feel more power past 4000 rpm. I'll put some more miles on it and see if it opens up more. Had a Magnaflow on my last MINI and am missing that sound.

 

I can't get over how sick those tips look!

I think I'll end up going JCW on my MINI assuming it look as nice as the Alta, otherwise I'll probably go with Alta. I like the fact that it's not much louder than stock.

 

Looks great! Don't stress on the sound. It gets a bit deeper and will not get annoying or blatty. Since we moved to our new building, I now have a 30 mile a day commute. I can assure you it will not become annoying on the highway!

Thanks again for posting the photos. I will see how I can chop some more weight out of the system ;-)

 

Lucky punk.

It's only 2 pounds though. Come on, I gain 2 pounds after eating a big dinner. I'd say don't bother.

 

I realize a lot of people like loud exhaust, but I like the quite stock sound while still getting the power benefit. That might just push me into a new exhaust system one of these days.... damn you ALTA for making quality thinks I like

And thanks for all the updates Adam, nice to get an idea of how things are going

 

That Looks Great

I'd be very interested in the tone after 1000+ miles. If you can put up a sound clip that would be

I had the Magnaflow catback on my '03 MCS and the wife ain't letting me go down that road again
It was Much Too Loud for her, and we won't mention the highway drone

 

Excellent post, quality photos! Thanks for the effort.

 

Any thoughts on HP gain yet?

 

On the new clips, I will try to publish some again after I hit 1000 miles on the system (coming up soon!)

ALTA2 (Jeff in my office) has dyno numbers and hopefully he will publish them here. I believe it is 10-12 WHP gain, and 15+ WTRQ. (Don't quote me.) I can say definitively the boost response alone makes it worth the purchase. Plus it looks SWEET!

Thanks again!

 

Did you lose any low end torque with the large pipes?

 

I agree that I want the extra power without any additional noise level. The great thing about a cat-back is that they usually gain at the high rpm which is where you want it most as there is already lots of wheel twisting torque at the low-end.
Also, I noticed that the stock exhaust is not a quiet system but has been nicely tuned to have some character.

 

Can't wait to hear 'em. Would love to hear a clip from the inside at cruising speed too. I know you guys say there is no interior drone or resonance, but I would really like to be sure of this before choosing the Alta system over the JCW from my dealer.

 

Any independent dyno's??? BMW exhausts are generally VERY good with little to no real gaines. The E90 335 has minimal gains from an intake and lost power with a SuperSprint exhaust!!