Mymini (www.myminiparts.com) sells cat-back exhaust systems made from the
source (Playmini in the UK), with a highly competitive price to boot
(especially in a market where prices of these things are highly inflated).

They have a sports cat-back which has proven high performance, loud (has
a bite to it), and a touring version which may come close in performance
and sound (when the resonator is removed).

Does anyone have an opinion on how the sports version compares to the
touring without the resonator? Some metrics may be:

a) Power and performance gains.
Unless one uses a dyno there is no sensibly way to compare
this, so perhaps a "I feel a power gain in all the gears at
most RPMs" is good enough.

b) Sound:
Both are loud with the sports being louder than the touring
without the resonator. Again without a dB measurement there
is no sensible way to compare this. So perhaps an answer
to the following is sufficient:

1) The touring without the resonator is almost as loud
as the sports.

2) It is loud enough to annouce "I am coming from 1/2
a mile away, and oh btw, take notice that I am going 11
mph over the speed limit".

3) Neigbors make a mental reminder to complain about
the exhaust.

4) Too loud that the family has no desire to take the
mini on long trips.

5) Too loud that it is not possible to listen to music
or have a conversation.

6) Its loud enough to get on your nerves when the car
is used for many small errands.

7) Others ...?

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

I can't tell you what the touring w/o resonator is like, but I do have and am very happy with the touring with resonator on my '06 MC. The sound is deeper, throaty and definitley there at idle and revving up through the gears, and then almost disappears from notice at cruise. Keep in mind that in terms of any real power increase, an exhaust system gain is virtually negligible anyway - so the difference between the "power" increase you would get with a touring/no res vs. a sport should be negligible to non-existent. IMO the touring with resonator is just about the perfect exhaust for the Mini, but I'm admittedl partial to low noise.

 

I have the Sports version and absolutely love it. It has the bite that I wanted, the sound that I wanted, the power that I wanted, and the budget that I wanted.

This exhaust + my CAI have given me 10 additional hp (dyno'd) and they compliment each other quite nicely. It is louder than stock (obviouslly), but doesn't wake up the neighbors nor family members when I pull into the garage.

I've been on long trips with it, about 500 miles and it was quite nice. It lets you know when you hit 4K + RPMs, other than that it just waits for you to tell it to go... And a nice burble when you lift the gas up (rarely)... lol

Let me know if you have any other questions,
Leo.

PS: Pete at MyMINI is one of the best guys to talk to when it comes to parts. He will not sell you anything just to sell it.

 

what i really want to know is what the touring sounds like without the resonator

i did call up pete and he is a great guy and did provide more than enough helpful information but someone who bought one of these w/o the resonator has got to chime in on this

are all the touring exhausts sold sold with a resonator or something?


_

 

and yeah, i'd pick this over the milltek and the borla

and then the milltek and then the borla street and then the magnaflow and then the borla sports



_

 

lol... Lotta exhaust to choose from...

The Touring w/o resonator is not that popular because you can just get the Sport and get the same results (little more power, still) but for less money.

He provides both choices for the situation where you're a youngster (me) and want to "sound sporty" (again, me) then you get the Sport version. If you're a bit older and want to "have the seat of pants" effect but not tell everybody you have an aftermarket exhaust, then go with the Touring.

My opinion: get the touring if you want a quieter tone. Get the Sport if you don't mind a little burble and feel sportier all day long.

I forgot to mention on my original post that this is on a 2002 MINI Cooper (non S, of course) and it is my daily driver, with 30 miles back and forth to school and 20 miles back and forth to work. *10 to girlfriend's house*

Take care,
Leo.

 

so if i were to ask you how loud your sport exhaust is;

1. do your neighbors hear you coming? at all? e.g. everyone complains, or maybe just a few people complain, or no one seems to notice? etc...

2. if i were to ask how loud it is in decibles as meaningless as it might be, would you say this is louder or some stock ferrari exhaust or a bmw e60 m5 exhaust? because the m5 is pretty loud; would you say your exhaust is over 90-100 db?

3. do people around you hate your exhaust note/sound/etc? especially older people?

4. can you hear the exhaust clearly from the inside of other cars when parked around you? e.g. stoplight, etc, what about revving the engine? freeway?

i know these questions may seem intrusive and offensive but they will influence my purchasing decision since i've never heard what the sport exhaust sounds like

or for that matter what the touring sounds like without the resonator


thanks



_

 

First of all, please don't apologize. Questions is what makes a sale! I'm just trying to help you out, and I'll try to answer your questions to be best of my capabilities/knowledge.

1. do your neighbors hear you coming? at all? e.g. everyone complains, or maybe just a few people complain, or no one seems to notice? etc...

I'm sure they do, but nobody has ever complained. You can hear any car drive by the front of your house, and even those "ricers" on the highway over here. My car is "deep", but not "screaming loud". So it has a very nice voice. It will not wake up my mom when I pull up on the garage, therefore it will not wake up anybody. My moms is very light on her sleep. It's funny 'cause after I park the car, she wakes up because of the garage door.

2. if i were to ask how loud it is in decibles as meaningless as it might be, would you say this is louder or some stock ferrari exhaust or a bmw e60 m5 exhaust? because the m5 is pretty loud; would you say your exhaust is over 90-100 db?

I really don't know much about decibles and all that, but a friend of mine (BMW and Porsche's enthusiast) has compared the sound of the exhaust to a stock Porsche Boxter, and one day I was cruising on the highway at 70 when a Boxter passes me, then I hit the gas a little bit to catch up and see if I could hear his car, and after I caught up, he let go off the gas and gave me the thumbs up. And the sound really was very close.

3. do people around you hate your exhaust note/sound/etc? especially older people?

Nobody has ever said anything against it. I've gotten compliments from 2 older gentlemen that are also MINI enthusiast, both having Coopers (non S); they came to me and said "hey, rev that thing up a little bit".. After I do so, they just look at each other, nod, and give me 2 big thumbs up. Saying the tone is "just right". For ages 20 and up! hehe.

4. can you hear the exhaust clearly from the inside of other cars when parked around you? e.g. stoplight, etc, what about revving the engine? freeway?

Can you hear it clearly from the inside of other cars: Not really, you hear like any other exhaust; at iddle, the tone is very subbtle. If you're not a MINI fanatic, you probably wouldn't know there was any changes (over stock tone). When you rev it up, yes - it's a deeper voice, and then it becomes clear that the exhaust has been changed.
Freeway: funny story - right after I got the exhaust done, I was cruising with my girlfriend on the road at about 75. I looked at her and asked "can you tell that it's been changed?" And she said "not at all". Then I rev it up to about 4500 RPMs, reaching 90mph, and she said "ok, it's there all right"... So in other words, if you rev it up, you'll clearly know it's there, but if you cruise, then it's just as stock. And if you get to 90mph, let's say, and keep the needle stable, you won't notice it either.

If I had the ability/knowledge/equipment, I'd gladly video and record the car for you, I'll see what I can do with my simple skills here, and try to post a link for the file here. Until then, just keep asking!

Hope this helps somehow.
Leo.

 

.An important metric I left out in evaluating the touring (w/out
resonator) and sports exhaust system was ease and quality of
fit. It turns out that "bolt-on replacement" may not be so
"bolt-on".

If the hangers are not the correct size you can have
serious problems with the sports exhaust. I had a personal
communication from someone that bought Pete's sports exhaust
that had this to say:

On bad days:

"There's the rattle at idle, which is annoying. Twice as bad
is the rattle at take-off, which is numbingly loud. The most
annoying rattle of all, though, is the 3300RPM rattle. With
my gearing and average driving speed, that's exactly where
I like to drive. Just a slight squeeze will get me past it,
but that's stupid.

I did some work to find the source, and it seems that Pete's
hangers are a bit too long. They don't just sit in the rubber
sleeves, they extend about an inch past them, pressing the end
of the metal into the exhaust-tunnel heat-shielding."

This obviously speaks badly for Pete's sports exhaust, and I was
wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience .

 

I'm glad you brought that up.

I have almost the same problem. I have a rattle at iddle and at take-off, but after 1500RPMs it goes away.

I took it back to Pete's shop and complained, he put it up on the lift and cut the hangers off 1" each side, assuming that was the problem - but no.

The hangers don't touch the heat-shield in my car, but (this is hard to explain) the hangers used to lean against the very bottom of the exhaust rubber-hangers (what holds the exhaust up). With time, it wore down the rubber at the bottom, and now I have metal with metal.

Since I'm a DIY guy, I will lift the car up on jacks, take off the rubber hangers (done it before) and apply some exhaust/heat tape to both the actual hanger and the rubber piece. I will also try to bend the rubber piece's metal a little so that it doesn't touch the exhaust's hanger anymore.

When I get the "will" to go do it (it's always 90+ degrees outside now-a-days), I will take some pictures of it to show better what I mean.

Pete spoke to the people that make his exhausts, and as far as I know, the 1" longer than should be hangers are not a problem anymore.

Take care,
Leo.

 

I have the touring exhaust with resonator. I like it a lot, it's deep and a little louder than stock, but will never be annoying on a trip. Just what I wanted.

My exhaust came with the wrong bracket, the pins that go through the hangers were turned the wrong way. I found this out at the muffler shop while having the system installed. The shop modified the stock bracket, which works great. It's been a couple of months since it was installed and no rattles at all, very secure.

I called Pete and he sent me the correct bracket, but there's no reason for me to change.

If someone tried the touring exhaust without the resonator and thought it was too loud they could always have the stock resonator installed to quiet the system. Same goes for the sport version.

 

Does anyone know if the MyMINI SPORT exhuast makes as much HP as a Borla or Milltek does? From what I've read they are all about the same in terms of HP. Trying to decide between these 3 and I'm leaning towards the MyMINI because of price.

 

I believe Grassroots Motorsports tested *dyno'd* the Borla, MyMINI, and Magnaflow, with relatively close results all around. MyMINI I think won best-pick on budget, too...

http://grmotorsports.com/news/012006/mini-dyno-work.php

Hope this helps,
Leo.

 

 

I've had the MyMini Sport (no resonator) installed for about a month now. Those "burn" marks are from welding the tip to the muffler and should be normal.

I've been a little disappointed with my MyMini exhaust. For starters the front exhaust hanger is too short. It has two prongs that fit into the stock rubber hangers, and they are too short by at least an inch on each side, and when installing it, the exhaust would slip out of the rubber hangers with just slight pressure from either side. I installed some poly bushings to center the exhaust on the hangers, but that is a temporary measure, and I think it may have already slipped out. The only fix for this is to cut the hanger/bracket off the exhaust and weld in a new longer one of the correct size, or to cut up and drill out the plate that the stock rubber hangers mount to and move the hangers in to compensate for the poorly designed bracket/hanger on the MyMini exhaust. I'm really not eager to start cutting up stock parts on my car though...........edit-I just re-read Leo's post above about the problems he had with his exhaust. Looks like Pete had the manufacturer take too much off the hanger, if we are talking about the same hanger (the one closest to the front of the car). It is a hell of a lot easier to cut some length off a part like that hanger (a $10 hacksaw would do) than to weld on a longer hanger.

After a week or two, I also started getting several different rattles and buzzes at various rpm which are quite annoying. I can live with the resonance at freeway speeds (I somewhat expected it with the Sport exhaust), but not the rattles and buzzes. This may be related to the exhaust hanger problem if it did slip out of the stock rubber hangers. Frankly I expected better quality for $400+. The $150 Dynomax exhaust I installed on my Neon years ago fit better and had no rattles or buzzing for at least the first couple of years.

If I can't easily diagnose and fix the rattles buzzes on the new exhaust, I'll probably yank it off and sell it, or stick it on a shelf and only run it during autocross season.

-Keith

 

While you shouldn't have to do this, my solution for the bracket problem was to modify the stock muffler bracket with some cutting and welding with the bracket than came with the MyMini Touring exhaust. Fits great and hasn't rattled at all in four months of use.

I have the Touring Exhaust with the resonator. Perfect for me, no highway resonance at all.

 

Are you guys sure that the rattles, buzzes, etc. are not the result of the installation job? Maybe these issues are peculiar to the exhaust w/o resonator, but I had the touring with res. installed on my cooper several months ago, and have had zero fitment issues, rattles, etc. I'm very particular about such things and I've experienced them in the past with other exhausts. It wasn't an expensive job where I had it done. I admire those who can do it themselves, so no flames if that was the case. Just a suggestion.

 

In my case the bracket that came with the MyMini Touring exhaust with resonator was made wrong and would never work without major modifications. I talked to the guy at the muffler shop and we decided to modify the factory bracket.

Pete later sent me the correct bracket, but I see no reason to install it.

 

In my case the front bracket wasn't long enough, and over time it was quite obvious that the exhaust would slip out of the factory rubber hangers. The noises started after my first autocross with the system installed, so it appears like the hard lateral movements probably knocked it out of the hanger. The only thing a "professional" installer might have been able to do for me is cut off the too short factory hanger and weld on a longer, correct-length one.

I've installed exhaust parts on many cars over the years, from headers to cats to mufflers to complete cat-back exhaust systems. This is supposed to be a direct fit replacement exhaust system for the stock exhaust, and as such should need no modification or fabrication to work properly. It is just two bolts on the flange at the front of the exhaust, a slip fit joint with a clamp, and two hangers which utilize the factory mounting points. Really quite simple and straight-forward for DIY installation. This was the most expensive cat-back exhaust system I've purchased to date (even though it is one of the cheapest for the Mini) and so far has been the most probematic.

It sounds like there have been several changes made over the course of the last year or two for the MyMini exhaust, and apparently not all of them for the best. Since this system is the same diameter as stock, I don't see why whoever designed the system didn't just make the front part of the exhaust an exact duplicate of the stock system to avoid any issues like this. Tracking down intermittent exhaust noises is one of my least favorite automotive tasks, second only to electrical problems.

-Keith

 

I am the one that started this thread and since I have had the MyMini sports exhaust for several weeks now, I am in a position to provide a data point.

Since I lurk on this forum, I would like to do my part for other lurkers

Product Quality:
The MyMini product (as far as I can tell) is of outstanding quality-- mostly because the original exhaust system on the Mini REALLY SUCKS!! The original resonator, center hangers, and muffler were badly rusted and corroding away. Even worse, an original flange bolt actually broke when I tried to remove it. It's worth putting an aftermarker part just to replace the original crap. BMW Mini ought to be ashamed!

The flange bolts and muffler support bracket provided by MyMini are of exceptional quality and majorly overkill (but the kind you would expect from 3rd party suppliers).

Fit
The first center piece did not fit correctly as it was not sitting square in the center rubber hangers. Within a couple of weeks I experienced the rattle that others have reported. MyMini claimed that there are variations in Minis and they would send me another one, which they did promptly. I just installed the new center piece, and there aren't enough languages and ways in which to say "PERFECT FIT"!! There is no way I am going to get any kind of rattle from this. I find it hard to believe that there are such variations claimed by MyMini -- but, what do I know ... If MyMini is right, then the first misfit was not their fault, and could happen with other exhaust systems.

Installation:
Installation is easy except that you need to raise both ends of the car. I reversed the back onto ramps and raised the front with a floor jack and put it on stands. BTW: If anyone knows the correct contact point to raise the back with a floor jack, please send me email.

Very important:: When replacing an exhaust system, REPLACE THE RUBBER HANGERS BY DEFAULT! This will add another $100 to the cost, but it makes no sense to put back the original ones, because they are bound to break when you remove them.

Overall impression:
My first impression was, "Oh my God; what have I done"! The system felt loud enough to cause a splitting headache. A couple of weeks later and I am wonder -- where's the beef! I actually need to roll down the windows to appreciate the sound! BMW Mini IMO did a great mis-service by not putting out these cars with a muffler like the MyMini one.

Sound:
The sound is really great!! It is high in low gears (especially if you are driving too slowly for the gear you are in), and calms down dramatically at fast highway speeds. This is exactly what I wanted.

It is not loud enough to be a public nuisance, and soft enough to carry out a conversation in the car and listen to music (although the volume would need to be one level higher). Being part of a ipod deaf generation helps! It is totally fine on long day trips.

Pros:

1. Great Sound.
2. Exceptional Quality.
3. Less expensive than other options.
4. Documented performance gains (I think I can tell; but then again, maybe not ;-)
5. And most importantly, the supplier is the manufacturer.

Cons:

1. If the center pipe that MyMini sends does not fit, then it is a drag to have to do the installation all over.
2. My city mileage dropped from 28 to 25, but only because I now use the engine for breaking as I want to hear that sound. This will change over time.
3. There is a shabby MyMini sticker on the back of the muffler which I promptly took off.

Impressions of MyMini:
Would I buy a MyMini exhaust system again? ABSOLUTELY! When you buy a Borla, Milltek, or what have you from XYZ, if it does not fit, chances are that you will be told to contact the manufacturer; good luck! The sports exhaust system from MyMini is branded by them, and you will be talking directly to the sole supplier of these things. This makes a huge difference....

Hope this helps.

Best of luck,
L. George.

 

Just an update on my exhaust. Pete saw my post on this thread and contacted me via email about the improperly fitting pipe on my exhaust. He promptly sent a new pipe out with a longer bracket on it with little stops welded on so there will be much less movement and it should hopefully take care of the rattling I've been getting. Unfortunately I haven't had time to install it yet for various reasons, but I appreciate the great customer service. Pete really does go above and beyond the call of duty to please his customers.-Keith