Exhaust Suggestions - help

[lowaveo17]

I was wondering what size piping you guys have and what kind of muffler, cat, resinator, etc. you have on your car... i want the best sounding and most noticable gains.. i'm really interested and need all your guys help. pics and videos would of great too.

[koots]

With the size of engine you have, i'd go with either a 2" or maximum 2.25" exhaust. Stock the piping is probably 1.67" or something like that, so it's a fairly large increase in size. I'd honestly go with 2" because the diameter of piping at either the manifold and at the end of the cat is still gonna remain the same. Now you can replace the cat with a larger diameter piping but it's not gonna help that much, when the manifold collector remains the same size.

What you want in an engine as small as the 1.6L is, is to keep exhaust gas velocity going as much as possible, to keep the engine's scavenging effect as high as possible. This is what most people will incorrectly refer to when saying an engine needs backpressure to make power LOL

So going with 2" will increase volume, yet won't be detrimental to velocity. A good free flowing muffler such as a Magnaflow would do quite fine. I'd also request you get a resonator, doesn't have to be fancy. I had a cherry bomb glasspack on my civic along with my magnaflow and it kept it from getting too loud. but i'd go with a Magnaflow case just to keep things running together.

I have a buddy who has a cherry bomb extreme muffler on stock piping on his basically stock Aveo and it wasn't too rough or raspy sounding. So that's a good alternative as well. I'm not a big fan of the rice sound (although it was hard to escape with my civic, at least mine sounded mean) and i was pleasantly surprised by the muffler. i scoffed at his choice when he first told me, but it sounded good and he's happy with it.

Any high flow cat you can get would be great, just don't fall for the ebay cats, most are basically just a little resonator or test pipe. Don't have to shell out big bucks for it as it doesn't provide a huge gain when you are only putting out around 100hp (average estimate, so don't hate on me) as the difference between stock cat and no cat, might only net you roughly 2-3whp. I'd say go with Magnaflow again, but i don't wanna sound like i'm selling their products here. It's my personal opinion on the brand and i don't expect anyone else to like it.

Now what would put the true icing on your exhaust is a header. a 4-2-1 header with at least a 2" collector would be perfect. Not sure what the aftermarket holds for you, but the flow and velocity of your exhaust needs to match up. So a 2" exhaust with a 2" collector at the header would be perfect, so you have virtually no bottlenecks in your system once it exits the combustion chamber. That will give you the best power. having a large exhaust with small collector/manifold would limit power as well as vice versa.

To get an accurate depiction of what kind of sound you want and muffler choices, search Aveo exhaust on Youtube, there's a few good vids on there and it will allow you to make a good choice in your own opinion first.

Good luck and i hope i helped.