I thought the R3 had a stainless steel exhaust or am I wrong?

R3 only has stainless tips.

The rest of the exhaust is plain, old, hot steel.

Paimon, how has this been holding up over time? Any flaking? Also, have you had to apply more coats? Do you still like it?

I was thinking of doing this to my muffler as well, but wanted long-term thoughts from you on this.

i will take a picture for you later today when i get home. Some minor flaking (then again it has been 2 years with all year driving) but nothing some touching up wont fix.

I was going to ask "why bother painting the muffler?", but on the OP's black car it looks pretty good. I doubt it would matter on my silver car, though. Especially since the S2 doesn't have as much black fairing under the bumper.

I was thinking the same, as I have a Velocity Red R3. But I think it is a good compromise in the meantime...I just think it is a lot of money for a new exhaust with minimal benefit.

Of course a new exhaust may sound a little better, and the exhaust tips inside the exhaust tip (Stainless Tip Flare) would no longer be a concern (looks a little cheap), so it would look better, but not much performance gain, if any.

Paimon!! Let's see it! haha.

There are pictures of a VR on page 1 too. This totally sharpens up the rear end and would look good on ANY 8 regardless of series or color.

ah! completely forgot. Going to gym in a few, will snag a pic before i go.

Here you go

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-x...511_125941.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-n...511_125925.jpg

FYI the center isn't worn out its just dirty from all the rain we have been having. You can however see the spots that I didn't sand/degrease all too well which have chipped. Nothing a little touchup wont fix.

Btw, if I had to do it over again, I would give the actual paint a shot instead of spray. I feel like you will get a far better coat.

btw, this is 2 years of use, without any touching up, and 2 very rough winters.

Lightly sanding the metal after degreasing it, then using a steel-specific primer, should help the paint stick even better. It would give the metal a bit of texture for the primer to adhere to, and the paint would adhere to the primer better than it would to bare metal.

I've never had an aftermarket exhaust, so I can't really comprehend what kind of performance gains might be had by getting one on a car like this. It's not a Hyundai Accent, so it probably doesn't have a bargain-basement exhaust system to start with. The only part of my exhaust that's showing any wear and tear after three years is the clamp that connects the rear pipe to the muffler; the rest has some heat discoloration, but that's it. I suppose the exhaust tips do look a little cheesy, but only when I'm intentionally looking at them to see if they're rusting on the inside. As for the sound, I dunno, I never much liked exhaust sound anyway, I much prefer intake sound. As with humans, I want to hear sounds come out of their throat, not their ass.

I agree. I did sand mine down, but totally could have done a better job. Maybe one weekend when I am bored I will take it down and go to town on it.

I know I'm years late, but thanks for the thread. It motivated me to do the same, and I'm happy with the results.

https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-discuss...5/#post4788990

dang it looks good. Seems like a simple job to do too. Will consider it on my rx8!!

Not sure if they still do it, but in the 80s and 90s Toyota used to use black painted mufflers on all their cars from the factory. I owned three MKII Supras that all had black mufflers. It offered a nice clean look just as demonstrated in the pictures in this thread. You could always tell the aftermarket exhausts as they stood out like a sore thumb in all their silver ugliness.