[quote=LexThor;85445]Received and installed the Doug Thorley post-cad exhaust last night. Initial impression: sounds great, no loud drone, best comparison is that it reminds me of the old British 2 seat open roadsters. Definitely an improvement and nothing that will annoy or wake the neighbors coming home late at night – not at all like headers on a muscle car. But then only test drove it less than a mile after installation. One & only passenger remarked that it sounds like it’s a lot more fun to drive.
Installation took less than an hour with the right tools at hand. And I know NOTHING about mechanics other than to be able to spot which bolts connect to what.
Instructions say to remove only the rear body valance BUT I don’t know how anyone could remove the heat shield cover over the catalytic converter, remove the old exhaust & install this without removing the entire back center body panel AND the bumper frame. And to remove the middle back body panel, there are two screws right in each of the upper corners below the bottom of the tailgate and to get to them, you have to peel back the ENTIRE back body panel that houses the tail lights starting at the passenger doors. And that means starting by removing the side bottom rocker panels.
Fortunately I had all the bottom black “orange peel plastic” panels removed for sanding & painting to match the body and was smart enough to wait for the exhaust to arrive before putting them back on. Made the job easier. But if your car is intact, expect to spend at least an hour removing body panels, assuming you know what you’re doing, before you even get to the exhaust. An all afternoon job.
Thanks to all the tips of DIYer's I was able to install mine, on the ground, in about 1 1/2 hours removing only the valence. (And, this is my first venture back into any kind of auto mechanics in over 20 years!)
This is definitely a job you want to do when the car hasn't been run and the exhaust is cold. I followed the lead of others and did not remove the top bolts on the heat shield. While it did make it a tighter squeeze to get out the others, it avoided the potential problems that have been reported with over-torqued factory bolts on the heat shield that break off when you try to remove them.
Leaving the heat shield in place, I found that there wasn't enough room to get my e-sockets in there but was able to break free the bolt with the 5/16" ratchet wrench for the heat shield bolt attached to the stock muffler and the 3/8" ratchet for one of the cat/muffler bolts. For the other one cat/muffler bolt, I had to put on the box end wrench and grab the open end with my needle nose vise-grips to get enough leverage to finish breaking it loose. A switch to the regular box end wrench completed the loosening of the first one, because there wasn't room to get my particular ratchet (craftsman) to click to a new ratchet position.
The tip about using channel locks to squeeze the muffler hangers through the hanger rubbers made that a simple task after the liberal application of WD-40. (Sorry I don't remember who suggested this, they deserve a hand.)
I did use the bolts supplied by DT, liberally coated with locktight, and the 12mm socket with 1/4" drive for the new installation. (The larger drive wouldn't have fit in the space.)
I'd say it sounds a bit louder than the Mini but not offensively so and most posters say it quiets down a bit after it's broken in. The sound is definite improvement, but I can't say I really saw any performance difference on the first test drive.
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