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Invidia Catback 10k mile review. Complete with pics!
Here is my review of the Invidia catback exhaust.
Open the box - WOW looks great!
5k miles - All the 2 bolt flanges are not flat. All the flange gaskets have blown out multiple times. Always a leak somewhere on this exhaust. I had to get special thick gaskets that won't blow out. That worked, but damn. Tempted to have the flanges welded shut.
Also At around 5k street miles the resonator blew out its fiberglass and is rattling.
10k miles - Rattling noise coming from inside muffler cans. Getting ready to blow their fiberglass too maybe.
And... After just 10k street miles a huge crack at the Y-pipe.
I had a welding shop fix the crack and add some reinforcement. Hopefully I can get a few more months out of it while I save money to have a custom exhaust made.
So in conclusion, This exhaust has a great tone and sound, it looks like a quality exhaust when you open the box, but it is junk, like something you find on ebay for really cheap type junk. My advice is spend your money elsewhere.
Your situation seems to be a bit of an exception. Lots of people in other car communities (honda, subaru, even ours) run invidia and the majority of them have good things to say. I have the same exhaust with similar mileage on it and haven't had any of the issues you had so far either (knock on wood). Don't get me wrong, I by no means think its the best in exhaust in the world or anything, but I wouldn't go as far to call it ebay crap. I second trying to contact invidia as well. What happened with your system is not acceptable.
I recently got some Scorpion headers (not installed yet) and I was thinking I'd like to pair them up with a new exhaust as well.
Heavily leaning toward the Invidia because the are reportedly a bit on the louder side (which I'd prefer) with good tone, but this post is alarming with such failure in a fairly short period.
Any other input and quality reviews from Invidia exhaust owners would be much welcomed.
My logical and thrifty side says install the headers and see if sound gets louder with my stock JCW system, and that is what I will do, curious to see if/how the tone may change, and I may end up seeing no need to pump up the volume.
I've read that headers will increase loudness but I'm not sure by how much?
I personally think that the R53 with stock exhaust is quite over-muffled, but I'm not really keen on obnoxious loudness either, so I'm trying to find the happy middle ground.
Also considering Milltek or Scorpion systems but they appear to me to be nearly identical to the JCW system --- are sound levels about the same between the three of those?
I had the JCW system and bought an aftermarket system (Gravity Performance) and it was a big difference. The JCW exhaust is civil and the Gravity is quite a hooligan (without overdoing it). The Scorpion header will probaby make your car a little louder, but the JCW system will still muffle it. A stainless catback is the way to go, you will not be dissappointed.
I made a video for my exhaust, which has a little bit of a comparison with the JCW exhaust. Also I have the stock downpipe with cat+precat.
Heard it up close, pffft that is wayyyyy too much for my liking
Thanks for the link, looks like a decent system for not a bad price, unfortunately they do not ship to USA which is rather common when it comes to the more bulky and heavy items, although I have been able to get some stuff when it's listed as no USA delivery by contacting the seller and making an inquiry.
One aspect of the Gravity design that I don't like is that they copied the squashed section same as factory JCW...
...whilst browsing ebayUK came across this one from DND which would likely be quite loud, but it is appealing to me and appears to be well made,
but cost-wise it's around the same as a Milltek and I'd rather not gamble on an unproven system.
I looked long and hard at Invidia. No first hand knowledge, but in the end I went with Milltek nonresonated, because I couldn't find any complaints.
I can tell you that it is significantly louder than JCW.
Happy with my choice, FWIW
Thanks!
I just bought a non-res Milltek right now today while they're on sale before the reported April price increase.
Although the Invidia design appealed to me due to their use of more elegant and flowing curves and reported good tone, when it came down to brass tacks I decided to spend my hard earned money on the tried-n-true Milltek unit.
...but I'm concerned that perhaps the front pipe is eff'd up because the bracket is crooked and when stood up it leans like 15° or something,
definitely not straight.
It should be straight right?
Hard to get a good pic showing it,
but here it is against a box and you can see:
Any help much appreciated.
Is this normal? Are they designed this way?
I do not want to encounter any headaches during install.
I have emailed Milltek and await to see what they say regarding the angled bracket on the mid-pipe.
Seems like it should be straight yes?
No guarantees here, but I seem to re@pnwR53S encountering this as well. IIRC, it's a feature, not a flaw, but if you want to do an advanced search on his epic tome of a build thread, it's in there.
No guarantees here, but I seem to re@pnwR53S encountering this as well. IIRC, it's a feature, not a flaw, but if you want to do an advanced search on his epic tome of a build thread, it's in there.
Ah!
Most excellent.
Thanks for the pointer.
I love how he is so thorough and documents everything so well,
I'll go have a looksee.
Hopefully I can find that section, it can be difficult when not logged in due to the goofy "infinite scroll" format this forum uses for some reason, but I have preferences set when logged in so it is page by page.
Some uplifting news if indeed it is a "feature" because I was pretty bummed thinking I'd have the hassle of returning the mid-pipe for exchange.
"Having received two sets of the Milltek cat back with the same flange on the long main pipe segment have the same off-square made me suspicious. I got up at 2:30 AM to call Milltek in UK. The person the phone said he is not technical and asked that I get a photo of the ID tag of the part in question, and he will relay the issue to the right person. The ID tag is the small welded on stainless steel plate with part markings. Every piece of the Milltek kit has a unique ID tag with "Made in England" etched on it.
I went back to bed after making sure Leigh has everything he need to follow up. By the morning Leigh has reply with the answer with an email. It as sent within a few hours of our last correspondence. I was impressed with their responsiveness.
He had checked with their production team who checked their master pattern, and the off-square angle of the flange is apparently normal, which I interpret it is as per designed.
The next day I decided to go ahead and give the installation a try to see if everything "square up". My original hangup was the ~7 degree of offset angle will skew the main pipe to one side instead of well center in the exhaust tunnel, and possible push the O2 sensor against the aluminum heat shield.
It turned out the ~7 degree offset is mainly vertical component, with no measurable horizontal component. Being only vertical component it is absorbed by the stock header's flex joint. I was able to reuse the stock gasket that consist of a ~1mm thick stainless steel sheet metal. When all the joints (there are 3 in total) are properly tightened the long main pipe sits perfectly center in the exhaust tonnel. It is also horizontally true as well as long as all the exhaust shock-mount hangers are in good condition.
My other hangup on the Milltek's hanger bars lacking the nubs turned out to be immaterial, as least with my specific unit. Once the three joints are properly tightened the muffler assembly is rock solid with respect to the Mini undercarriage. If I grab onto the tail pipes with my hands I cannot wiggle them in any direction due to the excellent (6 point support) hanger systems of our Mini.
I suspect Milltek chose to not adhere to the interface boundary (maintain a perpendicular plane of the flange) of the stock header was done to accommodate their own header, for whatever reason. To this accept as the cause of my original concern. Now seeing the installation result I am satisfy that it is an excellent product I retract my charge of shoddy workmanship.
I chose the Milltek over other competitions because of the one-piece muffler assembly design, country of origin, and price. Seeing how driving on track can beat up an exhaust system I did not want the Borla that has too many joints. The Stratmosphere appears to be very high quality, and most alike the Milltek and with the nubs on the hanger bars. It is however priced much higher. In all I am now quite pleased with my purchase."
:
"I did not take photo of the front flange joint. It mates tight with stock 1mm all steel gasket so there is nothing to see there. The stock header just had to unbend that slight angle vertically to absorb this angular difference.
I was concern with the rear flange joint and prepare to widen the heat shield there to gain more clearance. It turns out I didn't need to."
"I think Milltek did not designed in this slight tilt without a very good reason. If you look closer at their product photos you can see the long pipe flange do have the slight tilt."
"I think they did this to accommodate their header which is reported to only header with a high quality German cat. They engineer must deem this bend necessary on how their header to fit the best it can without exceed the bending range of their flex joint, taking into account the max engine rocking range."
"When shopping for a performance header, most people would overlook a detail. It is if the feeder pipes would all be shielded by the stock heat shield that attached to the cylinder head. From this photo I can tell the Milltek does, but not a lot of other headers that I have browsed."
:
So that makes me happy.
Milltek should have some sort of basic installation sheet that denotes the tilt, because it is rather alarming and makes you think it is fugged up.
Now,
I'm going to look in the epic thread to see what additional things pnwR53S possibly wrote about the installation of his.
Found a brief snippet so far in the epic thread, but it is highly relevant too because it's something that I was concerned about:
gaskets
I wasn't sure if I should use the factory-style pressed steel ones or the layered foil type like from Fel-Pro.
Tried to search various forums to determine the differences between the 2 styles.
Most helpful was a Miata forum (which happens frequently, very good general info) where someone raved about Remflex,
so I had a look, got convinced to try them, and shelled out $15 for a pair.
Yeah,
I was really deflated and stressed yesterday after initial inspection of the system,
so glad to have my anxiety concerns answered!
NAM is an awesome joint.
Won't be installing for another month or two as I have more pressing matters at hand regarding general maintenance, but I'll report back after install with my impressions.
The Milltek system is tried 'n true with many units in use on R53's and that's one reason I ultimately chose it, although I jumped the gun a little as I was planning on it further in the future I felt like I should go ahead and get one while they're on sale.
Deeply considered the Scorpion system too since it'd be a match for the headers, but not as much user experience out there to sway me, and I wasn't exactly keen on their construction methods either --- I think the collector that Milltek uses is a superior design over the Y pipe that Scorp goes with, plus the rear-tip bracket method may rattle loose or even worse, break altogether as seen in this photo from ebay UK where someone was selling a used one, yes the UK climate is brutal with rust and this is an extreme example, but it shows well my concern:
There is no chance that the Milltek tip bracket will ever fail like that!
Hmmz, my 2006 JCW exhaust looked the same...UK climate is sorta comparable with dutch climate. Do you have the Scorpion header? Would you recommend it or would you rather recommend something else?
I want to have another header, but havent made a decision yet.
Thanks mate!
