Aluminum exhaust?
 

Hello everyone, I've been considering a P5 on and off for a few years and now just may get one! I have one question though: does anyone make a reasonably-quiet aluminum exhaust for this car? I live in NY and we salt the roads like the fields of Carthage and having an exhaust that wouldn't corrode through every few years would be nice! I did some searching on Google and found lots of aftermarket steel or stainless steel exhausts but I'd really prefer something much lighter. Is anything out there? Thanks for the help!

I've never seen an aluminum exhaust.. for any car, ever. There is such a thing as an aluminized exhaust, but it is just aluminized steel .. meaning they just dip the non-stainless steel in aluminum (well it's an alloy but yeah) to help inhibit rust.

I don't know how much of a weight savings or gain my stainless steel midpipe (with cat) and catback was, but it's stainless and I've been in Rochester with it year round for three winters without any rusting exhaust.. the rest of my car, well that's another story entirely :P

p.s. WELCOME!! where in NY are you from?

I live in Iowa where the winters and salt are probably just as bad if not worse than NY, and I have a MazdaSpeed Axleback exhaust installed. It hasn't rusted a bit yet, and it sounds pretty nice. Many owners complain about it being too loud on the highway, but my personal opinion is that it's about perfect. It's reasonably priced, improves the looks of the car by removing that shameful looking stock muffler, and makes the car sound a LOT nicer. There are almost no performance gains from it cuz it's just an axleback (muffler) but it's a good start .. you can always get the other pipes separately.

Oh and welcome aboard bud .. hope you enjoy our little corner of the universe!!

if you want something light that won't rust just remove it all together. Problem solved.

Honestly though, no such thing as an aluminum exhaust. The heat would melt it and if you made it thick enough to prevent warpage then it would weigh a ton. I have seen a titanium exhaust but it was on a C-GT and cost in the $5k range.

A Racing Beat stainless steel catback probably doesn't weigh much more than the stock exhaust--maybe a few pounds, if that. Replace the stock cast iron exhaust manifold and primary cat with a tubular header and you'll be something like 50 pounds lighter.

It's actually about 22lbs lighter. A 4-1 header in place of the stock manifold and pre-cat is a HUGE gain and weight savings...one of the best.

I've wanted to build an "anorexic p5" for some time just to see how light I could get it. No'one seems to want to loan me their car.

lexan windows all around, odyssey battery, no ac, no ps, no rear brakes, no interior, cf everything, 10lb wheels, etc.

With that much weight reduction it wouldn't take more than about 150whp to break into the high 13's. Also, replacing the hatch with CF and glass with lexan lowers the CoG so much it's a massive handling upgrade. Glass is heavy. You'd save close to 50lbs of weight ABOVE the beltline of the car.

crazy options...no budget.

Hmm... that's strange, I could have sworn I'd seen about aluminum exhausts for the S2000. However, when I googled just now I did see a reference on NASIOC to someone saying not to get an aluminum exhaust since it wouldn't last through the heat cycles, and something else about aluminized steel.

In any case, thanks for the advise! My concern about rusting an aftermarket exhaust comes from the fact that my old Civic's exhaust developed a hole on my way to work last summer and the fact that when I was searching for an aluminum exhaust for the P5 I found this page: http://www.thinkythings.org/p5/exhaust.html where the guy says his lasted 42 months. Of course, that is 3.5 years, by which time I will definitely have an additional car.

That anorexic P5 is further than I would like to go. I'd like a lightweight exhaust, racing shells up front, lightweight battery (though I'll likely go with an Optima red top because of the winters), lightweight wheels, and possibly remove power steering, which I did without for years in my civic. I need A/C though, for defogging in the winter and to not sweat in my work clothes all summer.

Anyway, thanks again!

Optima red tops aren't lightweight at all.. they are heavy beasts! but yeah, I have one because I too have to deal with ridiculously cold winters

Why not start with a sedan? It's lighter and more rigid from the start.

Depends on the sedan (weight):

Protege5: 2716lbs
Mazdaspeed Protege: 2810lbs
Protege MP3: 2725lbs

anything below the mp3 in terms of sedan is.. QUITE a bit different than the P5. We can assume if the OP wanted a Protege5, they wanted the wagon/hatchback or the sporty styling (or both). The ES would give you 0 of 2 :P

I was referring to Matty's anorexic P5 post.

I know the Optimas aren't lightweight but I once had a weak battery give me issues starting in winter and decided to never deal with that again. I'm willing to give up a few pounds to gain that.

As for sedan VS 5, I like the styling of the 5 (though I like the sedan as well) but it will hold more for moving to Boulder and wagons generally have lower insurance. Now I just have to not work 60 hours so I can go test drive one...

Moving to Boulder? Jealous. ;)

I wonder which one really has more cargo capacity. Surely the hatch can hold larger items than the sedan, but it's also 5" shorter, so the sedan has more trunk space.

If you're hauling small items they're probably about the same.

With the P5 you can remove the seat bottoms and lay the rear seat back flat so you can hold a TON more space than a sedan.

Why gut a p5 instead of a sedan?? because everyone knows P5's are cooler.