i like my mazdaspeed just fine, looks great, nice deep sound.

 

yes, yes, yes, we all know they look and sound nice, but looks and sounds come with a price....the lack of performance.

 

kind of like driving a automatic, RIGHT!?

 

yes that part sux about it, if it was up to me i would have gotten standard, but my wife has to drive it also.

 

I am in the same boat as Jaster Mereel.

It is an auto because technically is is my wifes car.

On the topic of the exhaust, I realize that due to the transmission, I'm not going to get a big difference in performance but I do want to give the car a custom look.

Hence my question about exhaust sound. I don't want the exhaust tones to be so invasive that I might give the impression that the car is super tuned. I'd have idiots in ground scraping Hondas trying to stare me down at red lights. Not a good idea with a 2 year old in the back seat.

 

it all depends on what you like. i wanted more pickup from the getgo. I didnt really like the Mazdaspeed (Bosal) Mufflers, because they had a big (Ricey) tip. The Racing Beat has a Nice semi-oval angled tip and its a complete cat-back system. It's just basically user preference.

 

I went w/ the Mazdaspeed because I want to stick w/ as many Mazdaspeed parts as possible. I like that Mazda has so many upgrade parts for our Protege's, if you haven't noticed you can't get all these oem upgrades w/ honda's or many other cars.

 

Well, placed my order for the Mazda Sport Muffler today. It should arrive on Monday.

The decision come down to price. While I know you get better performance from the Racing Beat, I deceided that for MY use it wasn't worth the extra dough. I know I wasn't going to get mind numbing HP gains either way so I went with the economical decision.

Thank you everyone who replied and aided with my decision

 

Picked up the Mazda sport muffler on Monday and installed today (Saturday).

From reading all the threads on this issue, I thought that the hardest thing would be the rubber hangers. A little WD-40 and a bit of pushing, shoving and prying they came right off.

The bolts on the other hand are another story. They just wouldn't budge. I finally caved in and brought it to Midas for installation. Less than 15 mins and we were good to go!

I like the sound but it's a bit louder in the car than I thought. Wife thinks it's too loud but I told her it can't come off. (sigh)

 

I have the MS exhaust and love it. as for the price....$316. Consider yourself lucky, mine was about $380 after parts and labor at the dealership. Good luck with whatever you choose!

 

Damn 380$ **** i payed only close to 200$ with tax...