I want my car to be true straight pipe with resonators on it and my battery box is in the way it looks fairly easy to pop up and out and I'm wondering if anyone has done it? If they have and have suggestions please let me know thanks!

 

Someone on here recently cut out the battery box to straight pipe their car and I must say it looked like a cat five abortion when it was all done.

 

What are you looking to get from the straight through exhaust? Several people have done it, but there is no straight through exhaust solution for the R53 that does not drone on the highway.

 

I don't want to have to mess with bending pipes and losing air flow when the pipe bends so it needs to be a true straight pipe so it doesn't over heat

 

Lol...
I know the one you are taking about....
Some folks should not do sheet metal work....value of the car was cut by 85% I bet!!
I have seen it done right...
Both with a tunnel, so a miniature battery could be put in the back, or just used for storage... And a battery box added to the trunk, with a full welded down strap and venting system...then a bit of $$ for new battery cables....made the trunk more useless than ever....
My thought....you might gain half a hp...
But you then move you center of gravity higher, and off center....so you loose what you gain...and some extra weight, now up higher... Ouch...hurts BOTH WAYS...
On a track car...its a tossup...no worry about value, or drone, or looks...if it passes a safety inspection, great....
On a streetcar, ...whole different game...
But to point out, a mini is not, and will never be straight line sprinter....many folks run 250 HP through that "curved" exaust, no overheating, and putting the traction down is a bigger issue on any fwd car....
But you have found a solution in serch of a problem....you have an idea...have at it. It will be a learning experience.

 

ok sweet thank you!!!

 

I've done it on mine, I plan on replacing the bolted plate with a welded one and get a lighter battery, but I have other things to worry about right now. The four bolts below the battery are for the muffler hangers. It looks easy, but it's held by spot weldings, which can be a pain. :p

 

Why do you think you will overheat the exhaust? There is a lot of HP being made in R53's with split exhausts, like ZippyNH stated previously.

 

BTDT. You can run the pipe under the batt box no problem unless you're SUPER low.

And I've had >12 straight back exhausts on my R53, experimenting with various combinations of mufflers & resonators, from Magnaflow to Spiral to Summit.

They. All. Drone.

With one exception - when I ran a 2" resonator, which sucked up all the HP gain.

And... if you put a muffler (spiral or muffler, not straight-thru glasspack) underneath the shifter box, it will eventually overheat the nylon shifter box and cause problems.

So try if if you want, it sounds GLORIOUS when you want it to, but it Never Goes Away.

I went back to a JCW, eliminated the resonator, and it is great. I can hear again.

 

I have a borla xr1 center inline resonator could you post up a picture of how you went under the box? I'm on lowering springs H&R right now

 

ive seen 2 minis that just go under the box for routing, clearance isn't really an issue there

 

are they lowered? I'm just worried about if I go under its going to scrape on a speed bump

 

The only way I could get my straight-back exhaust battery-box delete to not drone was to add a turbo. I'm over-simplifying a touch.

Cut out the battery box, relocate the battery and mounting hardware to somewhere else, weld in new sheetmetal, add seam sealer, sound damping if you didn't shape the new panel for quiet acoustics, then prime and paint to match.

Of course, I don't recommend it. Just buy a Milltek exhaust or build a single exit and put Cooper bumper trim on the bumper and do it that way.


This is not a good reason. You're basically saying you're too lazy to do it right, so you'd rather go way overboard, hack up the car, and end up with it wrong anyway. Mandrel bends aren't your low hanging fruit or causing overheating, no matter what kind of power you're talking about.

 

ahhh alright I get it now

 

Basically, a bunch of us have done it and it's not worth it.

 

I basically found this and I think I'm just going to have them do this thanks for the info!

 

Good choice! The straight through is not worth the hassle.

 

So far, I've tried a Dynomax VT and a Borla Turbo, both were too loud for me AND the cops in the city where I work... They are both straight thru, even tho the VT has a valve in it, it rattled so bad on mine that I ripped it out.

Depending on the size of the inlet/outlet and what you're going for in term of sound level, it may be difficult to find a decent muffler, as most center/center mufflers are straight thru to begin with and sometimes only in certain sizes, like 3". I like being obnoxious sometimes, but not all day long and the droning with the Borla Turbo was enough to make me lose my sanity. I want to give the X-Force Varex muffler a try, I'm just waiting for the Canadian looney to go up a bit as I refuse to pay $100 more just in conversion rate. Apparently, the only distributor anywhere near me doesn't care one bit about replying to emails...

 

My buddy built a 51 Merc that was so low the pipes would drag, so he found some flat exhaust tubing. He went with headers and mufflers into round exhaust pipe over his axle then into flat tailpipes out to the bumper. I think he found them on a stock car racing site. They were close to 3 feet long with adapter from round to square pipe adapters.

 

One of the first mods to my '06 MCS was to dump that exhaust. It was on the car for the 7 years I owned and I,nor the new owner, had any problems. First I drilled out the factory spot welds and removed the battery box entirely and did a lot of careful measuring and then "sectioned" the box to clear the level of the pipe and still retain a flat carpeted floor. You would never know this had been done unless you had been told. I've chopped Mercs back in the day so it was no big deal for me. Ran a 2.5 exhaust into an Edelbrock (I don't think these are made anymore) SDT center outlet pipe and because I couldn't acquire a Porsche Boxter oval tip I used a twin outlet Corvette piece. Great growl on acceleration,nice rumble @ idle & very minimal drone @70-80 mph. Shaved 6/10 second off 1/4 mile time so something must have been working right.


ISAMIN

 

Sounds cool. I might have to follow your lead.

 

Mini motors are small......a few bends in the pipe are not going to restrict the flow enough to make any different....and it surely won't build any additional heat.

It's not like your trying to pipe exhaust out of a 1000hp twin-turbo LS1 or anything like that

 

http://www.motoringunderground.com/f...?t=3540&page=3

 

^^^

This all day long. The JCW and GP still have the battery box and exhaust routed around it. IMO it's a hack downgrade, but I suppose we should expect more of this stuff when these cars pass on more and more in the used car market.

 

+1


Yup...ultimate "ricey" mod...
Fixing crap that isn't broken cause it is easy and cheap, ..and reducing the usefulness/safety of your car, and increasing the center of gravity!!
What's not to love!!
Saying it "ricey" is not meant to be a slam...just to say its pointless...maybe not even rice cause you cannot see the mod...guess it must be seen to be "rice".....