upgrading exhaust
 

I am looking to upgrade my exhaust. I have been looking at the HKS catback system through vivid racing. I dont want anything that is going to sound ricee. Has anyone done this to there vehicle, or has anyone installed the HKS system. Ant information would be appreciated.

It will sound like farts.

There are a few people here who have the HKS exhaust. It's actually a pretty sweet sounding exhaust.

Do a search and I'm sure you'll find some good results and some sound clips.

you could do that or you could just change out the muffler and get a good sound out of it. thats what im gonna do since i think it was racing beat who stated...

"During the prototyping of our RX-8 exhaust, we kept hearing claims of rather large HP gains from other aftermarket exhaust systems. Since we were not observing gains anywhere near some of these claims, we decided to obtain two of these systems for our own reference. One of the systems performed as expected and produced around 3 HP, as did the RB prototype unit. However, the other system did not fare as well and actually produced less power than stock!

Since it is our policy not to "bash" or downplay competitors products, nor do wish to embroil ourselves in a controversy over HP claims, we will keep the brand names of these other systems confidential. Aftermarket manufacturers test products using various methods, and as you can see the results can vary!

It has been our recent experience with normally-aspirated Mazda applications that significant HP gains from an aftermarket exhaust system are hard to obtain. Mazda is simply doing a very good job with their exhaust systems! In today's horsepower hungry marketplace, it is unlikely that a significant amount of horsepower would be left behind in an ineffective OEM exhaust design. But hey, that's just our opinion
"

and you know if racing beat said that than you know you hace a good exhaust, but the stock exhaust is significantly heavier than an aftermarket one. im just gonna change the muffler to a magnaflow one and call it a day. just get a shop to cut and weld it for you.

Not quite true... The RB exhaust is actually heavier then the stock version.

Many people throw a big fit over this but if you ask me, who cares! If the person is that crazy about the extra couple of lbs, then maybe they should go on a diet, keep less stuff in their car, take off the damn body kit, remove the spare tire, or maybe get rid those heavy ass aftermarket rims they just put on.

Just listen to a few sound clips, take a LOOK at the different exhausts (as they have slightly different shapes) and just pick the one you like the best. Don't spend too much time worrying about weight or performance.