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drone... hmm... i duno bout that. i had a muffler on my other car and i dont remember that. all i know about is the "breaking" sound.. like at around 3000rpms when it starts crackling or somethin.. ya thats tight
~ sam

Mason, if I were you, I would wait until you drop in your 2.5 It does not drone as bad. When I had my Brullen (2.25" mandrel, stainless, cat-back, 18" resonator - straight through, straight through muffler) on my old 1.8 it was loud and bad. Sounded like a loud superbike. Now, with Ze, it is quite quiet, considering it is a straight though design. If I were you I would get a good chambered muffler and a long resonator with custom 2.5 pipe.

There are a few things you need to consider, the first being is that do you want an exhaust that will not drone only or do you the want the ability(read bragging rights ) of saying that you have a Mazdaspeed exhaust.

If you'd like the bragging rights and the nice exhaust i'd say go for it. The price is up there with the price of any high quality exhaust from any of the top vendors and adding the price of exclusivity into the price its about right.

Now if you want a nice exhaust that isnt to expensive, get some piping and some mandrel bends of the ID of your choice. Find someone that can weld or learn like im doing right now. Then just copy the same pattern of the orginal stock exhaust, replace your cat with a high flow peice or a resonated test pipe. That takes care of the piping and if you look around you can get all of that for not too much money.

Now you need to get the proper muffler, I am biased so I would go with a borla muffler. But I hear that Magnaflow is really good too. Either way give one of those companies a call and tell them what your goals are and they should be able to point you to the right unit. Remember that Borla comes with a million mile warranty and are all stainless steel too. But it is up to you!

thanks

Still fighting the "drone wars" eh mason? ), but the mazdaspeed will take it all away. But i do agree with the other guy that posted... the 2.5 doesnt really have a drone sound to it unless you're using a fart cannon muffler.

Yeah, I was thinkin I'd just wait for the 2.5 and then decide after that - plus I'll be able to feel whatever difference an exhaust makes on the larger engine, and that will be fun. As fighting drone, at least on the 1.8, I've been there/done all that with the custom stuff etc, and that thing just drones.. One small theory I have is maybe that range is where it's a little lacking in power and it's working harder to get the job done etc. (because it quiets down when you start getting into the real powerband - as long as you're not on it, haha) I may still go for the MS system later though, who knows. Ooh, also, somebody said resonated pipe for the cat.. did you mean resonator or did you mean cat? Never thought of getting a resonated piece for right there. (and I know on the 1.8, it just makes the drone worse when u get rid of it, haha) Thanks for the input!

On my previous GS, I installed a straight through muffler on the stock exhaust and it drone a lot...
A friend of mine put the Remus muffler and the sound was really cool, with no noticeable drone (neither performance).

On my actual GS, I have a ZE with custom 3-1 headers and two 2" pipes all the way back... with this setup I tried magnaflow mufflers and resonators, flowmasters, h pipe and remus...
In all my testing a NEVER had the drone, I had the loudest car I ever heard, the badest sounding, the weirdest... but no drone at all.

Imo it is definitely a header issue.

Mason, remember that MS exhaust was designed for 1.8 too. May be a consideration to think about.