Today I took the car down to a local shop that does custom exhaust systems. We put the car up on the lift and he pointed out some places that I messed up the other day when I reinstalled the system but I knew already that I had hastily set it back into place.

Anyhow here is the plan of attack

Setp 1) He is going to remove the X pipe and install my factory LT1 resonator, leaving the Magnaflow mufflers. I will see how this sounds and determine if the resonator helps to tone down the drone a little bit. If this doesn't work, on to step two

Step 2) leave the resonator in place and remove the Magnaflow straight through mufflers and replace with Flowmaster series 50 baffled mufflers and my old factory LT1 tips. I questioned his suggestion of the Flowmasters and he says that he uses these series 50 on many performance cars and they do not drone like the Magnaflows. Additionally, he said that the three inch Magnaflow straight through muffler like I have on my car is the loudest muffler that Magnaflow makes. Also it is the shortest can which also makes it louder.

If this fails... I will be welding up some factory LT1 mufflers behind the resonator and see what that does.

I think he will be able to fit me in on Tuesday to get this work done. Crossing my fingers. Although today when driving back the weather was nice and the car really did sound good while cruising along. Kinda hate to lose that wild rumble.

I remember standing behind my car when it was on the dyno - at the time I had headers on it and the stock cat-back. Sounded mighty damn sweet.

Corsa.

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Too much money! A little tinny sounding to me, I like a little deeper sound. Plus I don't need their pipes from the factory cats to the resonator and I 'd have to relocate my cats forward a bit. I know that its supposed to be God's gift to Corvette owners, but its still way overpriced in my opinion. I'm looking to get adequate sound without spending another thousand dollars.

Have you looked at the Borla XS series mufflers? They are the quietest of the free flowing performance mufflers. Kinda high at $100 each.

BTW I was able to get my 92 out today and on the hwy....

I have to take back what I said in the other thread about the crusie noise level with the Corsa. It's noticeable but much quieter running down the road at 1500-1800RPM than it is stopped at it's 950-1050RPM idle. Honestly if the tranny and rear gear noise wasn't so bad (from the snubber bar) I don't think the exhaust would be a problem.

Of course I'm really not the guy to be giving out exhaust recomendations.... However your welcome to give me a call one day when your working down here and I'll let you take it for a ride and form your own opinion.
Will

If you have any interest in a B&B triflow exhaust, drop me a line. I have one I'll let go at a very reasonable price, if I don't have to ship it.

Live well,

SJW

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Remember - you are comparing the Corsa on a stock engine. Try that again with the 383.

I don't find the Corsa tinny at all. At idle it has a nice little burble, and at full song, it starts to rip like a NASCAR in car camera sound. The SOUND is there, the volume isn't.

Here is a Flowmaster Cat back and a stock lt1 cat back. No cats, with long tubes and a 396 LT1.
I prefer the Flowmaster. I like the looks of the Borla/Magnaflow and COrsas, but too rich for my blood.
I may get some Flowmasters and put them on the back, keeping the factory resonator.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3srZU1CyMRA

Just an update.

Step One complete. Here is my observations. It cost me $150 to have the exhaust guy to remove my X-Pipe and install the factory resonator. The results were negative. It did not remove any sound level at all and not much if any drone. I need to drive it a bit more to really determine that. If anything it sounds a bit worse. Not louder worse, but tone.

Step Two: Install factory LT1 mufflers in place of the Magnaflow. I have a set shipping up here from Louisiana in a couple weeks for $130 shipped. They look like new and have been painted flat black. I'll give this a shot. Then I will have a pseudo factory exhaust setup with Long tubes and high flow cats. I hope that does what I want.

The drone is from the mufflers. OEM mufflers are designed to reflect the sound waves back on themselves to cancel some of the noise out. OEM mufflers are designed to magnify it, and do it inside an echo chamber. Try that resonator with cats and no mufflers.

I'm curious as to how this turns out.

My car has Melrose LT headers to X pipe to Random Tech HF cats to PE "mufflers" with 3" pipe. It doesn't really have a drone sound, but it's still very loud inside the car. I heard the same system on a stock LT1 and it was much quieter. I think you will find that the noise is a trade off to a built 383, but hope this is wrong. I'd love to have more of a sleeper sound on my car, so please keep us posted!!

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I wonder why this is. Because of the short distance and lack of space under the body for routing the exhaust system? Bunches of cars have large displacement motors and are not loud. Look at the old Mopar 383s and the Chevrolet 454 cars. They came from the factory with good sound but not too loud. I guess they just used those big old can mufflers to keep them quiet and all the Hot Rodders took them off and replaced them with glass packs and Hush Thrush Mufflers.

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I don't believe that displacement is the problem. My engine is just noisier, due to a little higher compression and taller cam with shorter duration. Even with stock exhaust, I'd hear the motor more. I could put stock manifold, cats, resonator, mufflers, and tubes back on, but the motor would be choked quite a bit. The motor would feel like you gave it a beer, but made it drink from a coffee straw.

As for the mopars and other muscle cars, the mufflers are also located in a very different place. The tubing after the mufflers are much longer than on a Corvette. This changes the tone and resonance characteristics. Kinda like comparing apples and oranges.