Hey,Over the past few months I have been wasting lots of money on exhausts, but I think I have finally found the one I am going to keep!In chronological order, this is every modification I have made to my R56 Cooper S exhaust, and a quick description of how it sounded/felt.

1) Stock R56 Exhaust. Quiet and I wasnt too keen on the looks of the 'beer can' exhaust tips. Coming from a Milltek R53 exhaust, I wanted something like that again. So...

2) Custom back box from local Poweflow exhausts dealer.. Cut off my back box from about 2ft behind it and welded on new same diameter pipe and slightly smaller back box with nice 2.5"; slash cut tips. Sounded terrible. Very boomy and monotone, no definition what-so-ever. On motorway it was just a drone.

3) Went back the very next day and told them I wasnt happy, they suggested removing the central silencer (resonator) to make it a bit more "raspy" which is what I was after... So they removed it, and welded a straight pipe in its place. Sound was a bit more raspy as they had predicted, and the exhaust burbled and popped like hell.... but DRONE! OH MY GOD, anything about 50mph was a nightmare... I put up with this for a few weeks before speaking to Hector on these boards who said he could make me a system. I listened to a load of video clips of people with the same exhaust I was going to get and loved the sound of it, so ordered one. A full turbo back, in 3" with no cats, no resonators, and a Magnaflow back box.

4) So a few weeks later the exhaust was fitted and my initial impressions were that it was no quieter than before, although the sound was quite different. It now sounded like a mean tuned performance car, it burbled and snarled and popped like it should - but I still suffered from the terrible drone... and then things got worse. I dont know if the exhaust took some time to break in, but after a few weeks of having it, it got around 100% louder, and anything from 2500rpm upwards in any gear resulted in the most ear splittingly loud drone and this got even worse when decelerating.. It had to go.At this point I looked back at what I had spent and realised that I needed my next move to be the right one as I couldnt afford to waste any more. So I thought and thought about it before finally coming up with this idea.First of all, the power from having the de-cat is phenomenal.. I couldnt go back to having the stock downpipe back on. And I couldnt afford to buy a new catted downpipe.. So i had to keep the 3" downpipe that I had fitted... but how could I make my standard 2.3" exhaust fit this?!?

A few phone calls were all it took and I had myself a 3.25" - 2.5"; reducer cone which was to go over the end of the 3" downpipe and also over the end of the stock exhuast, and allow the 2 to connect together... Would it work though.... 3 hours solid of welding is what it took and my car was lowered down off the ramp and started up..... silence but with a hardly audible burble..
This was looking promising.I have now had the ehxuast fitted for a full week and its perfect. A lot of people on these boards might say the sound isnt for them, which I would understand, but from my personal experience this is by far the best R56 exhaust I have ever heard.
It is EXTREMELY raspy - just like an R53, but perhaps even more raspy. When driving normally it is almost totally silent but as soon as you give it anything above 65% throttle, you get this fantastic raspyness from the exhaust - it sounds like no other R56 I have ever heard.I know this thread is kind of useless without a video... but hopefully I will be getting one uploaded tonight!
This will hopefully be the last money I spend on my R56 exhaust now, and I can start saving for more power making mods Before anyone orders a 'really loud exhaust' I suggest you think about it for a day or 2 and consider my experience before you subject yourself to it! These are some of the things that I used to get..-

-At anything above 2500 rpm the rear view mirror rattles and shakes so much that you cant see out of it... this isnt from the road surface, this is from the jet engine exhaust on the back of my car..
-No point in even having the stereo on, even on near full volume you lose all but the high pitched female vocals and guitar solos, everything is drowned out by the boom from the exhaust...
- I couldnt take people in the back of my car. My friends used to refuse to get in my car if they were in the back, simply because within 2 minutes of it you have a headache
- Dont even think about trying to hold a conversation. Oh and phonecalls, nope they dont work either. Several times I would get people hanging up on me mid phone call because quite literally, they couldnt hear a word I was saying. The noise was distorting the microphone and the other people just couldnt hear me... needless to say, I as the driver couldnt hear them either....

So although some might say my new exhaust sounds a little fart-can ish, at least I can now listen to music, hold conversations and take people in my car which is a huge improvement to what I had before IMO!!

 

apologies for having no breaks in that! My browser is playing up (damn this Internet Explorer security breach) and it wont let me put line-breaks into this!!

 

That hurt my eyes! so in summery you have a 3" de-cat downpipe with the stock cat back exhaust and stock back back? or the powerflow back box and no resonator?

 

lol sorry - im at work and they have restriced the internet because of this security breach thing, and for some reason I cant put line breaks in!?Spot on though - 3" DP connected to a 3"-2.5" reducer pipe (kind of shaped like a cone) connected to my stock cat back..Sounds good IMO but some might not like...Also I dont know if this is a placebo type effect or what, but my car definately feels more powerful? I thought this immediately after testing, and each time I drive it I think the same thing, i dont know why but it certainly feels quicker?Perhaps due to the weight saving! That 3" stainless exhaust weighed a ton!!

 

You probably do have more power, since the downpipe is where the power comes from in the exhaust systems.

 

No, I mean that it feels quicker than when I had a complete 3" exhaust (inc DP)So 3" Dp > 2.5 " exhaust feels quick than 3" Dp > 3" exhaust

 

I thought you meant quicker than stock lol. Yea you probably did save some weight by putting on the stock cat-back on. Which 3in DP do you have the aluminium or SS? Also, would that effect your emissions test with no cats?

 

Funnily enough, I havent got a CEL. Its a bit of a long story but I had an O2 extender - which kind of keeps the actual sensor further away from the exhaust stream. Well with that I got a CEL instantly... but the code was P0139 - which is O2 sensor is slow to warm up! (obviously it was so far from the exhaust flow that it wasnt getting any heat from it so it flagged that up as the fault!) But once I got rid of the extender and put the O2 sensor back in the normal location, the CEL light went away (even though no cats!)Ive got the SS downpipe

 

Nice. I'm really anxious to hear your set-up! Hurry up and post one tonight! haha

 

Argghh its bloody raining now!
I'll try and convince my camera man to get wet!

 

No video tonight :(
Pouring down here - sorry

 

Pictures Please!!

 

Where do you live? We have no burble here in the US no matter what you do to the exhaust.

 

He lives in the UK.

I'm excited to hear a video!

 

so lucky you have no cel...

 

*Quick update* - I am planning on doing a video tomorrow, as I am off work so I have no excuses!
Hopefully I am going to do an interior video, an exterior video, a flyby, and hopefully some speed tests on a private road 30-130 and a few other intervals in between

 

Finally managed to get a video of this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiRXiRRCtE0

Done a comparison of 3" turbo back versus 3" Dp connected to stock cat back

Doesnt sound a lot different from outside the car, which isnt what I was expecting! But inside the car it is a dream come true. No drone at all, what ever speed you are doing

 

 

and http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jga0i9UH_w

 

Dude, wake up. Your driving on the wrong side of the road!

 

Yes Really , !!
Be safe , it's dangerous a lot , especially for your fabolous Mini

 

Soooo, if I bought the Exhaust Depot downpipe and used my stock exhaust, could I assume I'd be happy as this guy?!

 

Well drone sux i am not going to argue that. But that is one of the evils of an exhaust especially with a 4 cylinder. I like the sound of both of them but inside video is required. So from what your say is that you just did a 3in catless dp and stock exhaust tips and everything. Power numbers required too. But hey if you like it you like it.

 

Yep Bingo
3" downpipe connected to the stock catback via a reducer pipe.

Sounds brilliant IMO - no drone at all and it is very throaty from outside the car. Will try and get a tunnel video at some point

 

No tunnel. Just from inside your MINI