muffler, high-flow cat and CAI - please help!
 

Ah, finally! Protege forum where there's actually some 2 gen. owners. Thank God!
Briefly, I have a 98 1.5l, with H&R Sport springs and KYB Gr-2's, Vibrant strut bar and MX-3 15" wheels with Kumho's. Right now I'm working on buying a muffler, high-flow cat and having the local muffler shop change the piping to 2.25" or 2.5" (still debating). There's probably someone outhere who has done this, and I'm wondering what's a good muffler and a high-flow cat that fit?
I appreciate all of the suggestions!!!

thing with high-flow cats is .. we really don't have any that can fit (direct bolt ons) but you can get one welded on. Or maybe try to get a Cat for a defferent car and see if it fits, but noone really want's to go through the trial and error/money.
Most of us agree that 2.25 is good enough when it come to muffler pipping and also there are so many different views when it comes to mufflers. I somewhat noticed that it really does not make much sense to get the mufflers with silencers, they don't make much of a difference on our cars.(sound wise).
I looked on ebay for my muffler . Got it for 50 bucks . You can get a lot of items for cars on ebay.com
Bruce

I was wondering if you replace the piping and put on a cat and a muffler, would the car be too loud for everyday driving? Ofcourse, keepin' it in low revs helps.

Thanks for the tips Bruce!

If you keep the resonator on , you will be ok ..
Take off the resonator and the exhaust will be frigin annoying .. I learned this the hard way. I couldn't deal with not being able to have a normal conversation with a female in the passenger seat..

I am interested in a high flow cat though .. it's just finding one ..
Bruce:D

2slow-

I am planning the same setup with 2.25" piping from headers back. I originally wanted Magnaflow cat and muffler, but I think I will opt for a cheap "Ebay" high-flow cat, and a quite flow exhaust. I have a ractive high-flow muffler and it alone resonates like a mother, especially at low rpms. But I have an auto tranny so it could be different.

As for CAI, some were just made especially for our cars in Canada. I do not know what quality they are but they are over $100USD. I just build my own for less then $30 and I will post pics later on.

Good advice. I will definetly keep the resonator on, and probably go for a Magnaflow cat and cheaper muffler, cause I feel the cat is more important.
As for CAI, I know there is the new Essential Speed one for $300CDN or $225US, which is a little too much. I assume that's the one you are refering to. It's probably kick ass but I'll do some custom engineering and build one myself. And I am actually from Canada.
Thanks again guys!!!

question: is this the proper order of devices from manifold to tailpipe tip: cat, resonator, muffler? i thought that second box was a second cat at first but i didn't get a good look at it. but after doing some research i guess only california cars had the resonator replaced with a second catylitic convertor?

how much power does the resonator rob, and if you have a descent muffler how well does it perform in dampening noise? i mean, every other car i've owned (many, dont ask :) ) has just had a cat and a muffler, no resonator(s), and they were just as quiet.

I have a 3A Racing CAT-BACK exhaust from the headers.. I have no resonator, and within 2 months, already been pulled over twice. :D

the stickers in your windows don't help the fact that your targeted by police. the sounds just an excuse for pulling you over and giving you a hard time. i went through the same thing with those stupid windshield squirt things that light up white. unfortunately that wasn't an intentional upgrade as i broke off a squirter nozzle last winter while shoveling a foot of snow off my hood :)

dealer wanted 12 bucks for one piece of plaster, autozone wanted 10 bucks for a pair that 'glow'. figured from a financial perspective it makes sense, but then i just said screw it they're stupid and took them off to replace with nice black plastic squirtys. anyway, i hear loud cars all the time. they dont get pulled over. if you make yourself a target, you will be targeted.

but back to the noise issue. how does a resonator do that good of a job compared to a quality muffler. i did some research and most cars before 96 (the introduction of obd2) didn't even have resonators, and truthfully, all stock exhausts from any modern car sound equally quiet to me.

My 95 has 2 cats, one right at the exhaust manifold, and the second right behind the engine. It also had the resonator toward the middle and a muffler at the rear. If you don't remove the one at the exhaust manifold, basically everything else doesn't matter much. (Headers aren't available for the 1.5) I put a 2.25 exhaust after the 2nd. cat with a Ractive Oval SS muffler, no resonator, and it's pretty loud. Most aftermarket mufflers are a straight through design, sort of what they used to call glasspacks. Great for performance but noisy as hell. I'm not sure if it's made much of a difference, but with the 1.5, I figure every little bit helps. It "sounds" faster!!!

i still plan to keep the stock muffler. i wouldn't replace it since it still works and i wouldn't get anymore power from a glasspak anyway (like 1hp.)

however im hearing the resonator is a key element to unlocking horsepower (5hp) because it is something mazda uses at factory to limit horsepower for economy cars to get a better epa rating (because to the stupid government, less horsepower means better fuel efficiency.) think about it, have you EVER bought a car that got anywhere near the mileage the epa sticker said it did, unless it was a protege, civic, sentra, corolla? no, they base it completely on what the engines rated at and put it through some stupid formula and drive it 10 miles to get some sort of average they call a 'average fuel economy rating.'

Ford's been using resonators to limit horsepower (not noise) for years on small cars because CAFE organization blasts Ford every year for not complying to fuel efficiency, simply because Ford manufactures more class 1, 2 and 3 trucks than anyone else so they need little pathetic cars to make up for the 10mpg Excursion and 11MPG F350's with duallys. Think Focus. Think, why else would they buy Mazda, who makes the smallest, lowest horsepower engines out of Japan (look at the millenias, their top of the line car, has 200hp unless u get the millenia S with a millercycle.) The RX8 is the FIRST exception to Mazda's fuel efficiency 'law' since Ford took them under their wing, because RX8=money as things are turning out. Last I heard its waiting list is till mid-2004, longer than the PT Cruiser (the last waiting list winner back in Fall 1999)

What I think of resonators is unsubstantiated without evidence (you know, the idea they are designed to limit horsepower, not muffle sound, which is a mufflers job) but I state many, many facts to my theory. I'm cutting it off in the morning and replacing with a 9.5"x2.25" stainless steel pipe. I doubt its going to add sound with a oem muffler. What I'm determined it will do is add low end power where much is needed.

That *might* be true.
But resonators can be used to quiet the exhaust and NOT strangle horespower.
Look at my suggestion for the Cherrybomb as a resonator...it's a straight thru design that doesn't hinder flow(a small child could pass their arm through there). While not being a significantly impeding airflow, it does kill a good deal of harsh 4 cyl noise. A nice performance muffler can do the rest.

No annoying drone on the freeway...

If you look at the Racing Beat website, they did a test of exhaust systems on a 1.8 Protege when they were doing the MP3 for Mazda. The biggest restriction was the cat at the manifold, which they couldn't remove since it was a factory project. They did pick up a few horses with the cat back system though. I think other than the cat(s), the biggest restriction is the stock muffler (just look at the diameter of the tailpipe!). The resonator looked like it had baffles, but I didn't look at it when I tossed it when I had the custom cat back fabricated. A resonator doesn't make horsepower, it just changes the tone. Anytime you put anything in the exhaust flow it restricts flow, and as long as the car is tuned for the added flow (open element air cleaner, a fuel injection system that can compensate for the added flow), a low restriction exhaust makes horsepower.