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Hi gang,
Before I begin my long-winded discussion on what I did
this weekend, I want to disclaimer it with a whole bunch
of YMMV's, FWIW's, and various and sundry other "caveat
emptor's"...
I will describe my justifications for doing it, but am
open to lively, offline discussions about it...
---
Project: Replace the stock muffler with a Cherry Bomb.
Desire: Add some "grumble and throat" to the stock VR6 exhaust
without spending big bucks on a mail order exhaust and
putting it on and *then* not liking the sound or the
way it might affect low-end performance. I also didn't
want an extremely loud/present exhaust note since my car
has to be street driveable (read: wife friendly! ;).
Car: 1996 VR6 GTI
Parts: $19.99 "Cherry Bomb" exhaust (Pep Boys)
$2.57 Buck Bros. 24 TPI hacksaw blade (Home Depot)
jacks and stands (free, I already had 'em)
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Installation:
-------------
(Thanks goes out to James Carroll, a local VW hacker... *ahem*
tuner who helped me with the installation...)
Essentially, what I did was saw off the stock factory muffler
right at the weld point and the pipe... Unfortunately you don't
have a lot of room to work with, so we didn't use a full-out
hacksaw... Instead, James had a hand hacksaw (don't know
the official part name) and we had to delicately hack for
a good 30-45 minutes to eventually saw off the muffler... The
car was jacked up on both sides and rested on floor stands
with a 2 1/2 ton jack placed underneath the cross member as
a backup! :) With the stands, however, the car was very stable
despite our jostling/wrestling with the hacksaw...
I must say that I'm very impressed with the quality of the
factory exhaust... The piping is very nicely done and
the way that it's hung is pretty tight... It was interesting
to note the number of mufflers/resonators on the VR6
exhaust vs. the 2.0L GTI...
(- fast forward past the cursing/sawing/sweating/resting -)
Ok, after we got the stock muffler off, we decided to fire 'er
up and see what the VR6 sounded like without the rear muffler...
James put his finger in his ears, I went around to the driver's
side, and *ZOOM* . . . ppppuuuuuurrrrrr . . . WTF???
NOT LOUD AT ALL!!!
(Hmph, maybe these folks on the 'net are smart after all--it *IS*
the suitcase that's killing the sound! ;) Needless to say, both
James and I were quite surprised to learn that, without a rear
muffler, the car's not loud at all... At this point, I became
skeptical that the Cherry Bomb was going to add very much to
the tone of the exhaust...
However, when we attached the Cherry Bomb to the pipe,
*SWWWWIIINNNNGGGG*
Nice! As James said, "THERE'S YOUR LOW GRUMBLE!"... :) So, we
rigged up da' Bomb with coat hangers and mounted it with a
2 1/4" U clamp to the stock pipe and went for a ride...
Exhaust Note characteristics:
-----------------------------
Inside the car, the exhaust really seemed to come "in tone"
around 2000--2400 rpms, especially under load... There also
was another quite distinguishable note around the 3500 rpm range
that sounded, although higher pitched, quite nice... Outside
of these ranges, the exhaust was barely noticeable over the
stock exhaust...
What this means is that tolling around town in 4th gear at
45 mph is *QUITE* satisfying... In fact, coming into work
this morning I doused my radio and was grinning from ear
to ear, listening to the sweet sound of the VR6 rumble (which,
I *knew* was there but was being squelched by the factory muffler)...
We also did several "drive by" tests to see what the tone sounded
like from outside the car... In summary, it's barely noticeable...
You *can* tell a slight difference in the characteristics of
the outside note, as it does seem "throatier", especially when
launching the car... But, if you live in a peaceful neighborhood
and have good relationships with your neighbors (*very* important,
mind you), they will not notice any difference... *phew*! :)
In summary, I'm very pleased with the results and will be taking
my GTI to the muffler shop today to get them to finish what
I started... What I intend to get them to do is (a) weld the
Cherry Bomb to the exhaust pipe (this, I believe, will require
them to add an adapter so that it'll line up right), (b) weld on
the hooks/arms to hang the Cherry bomb in the stock hangers,
and (c) weld a tip on to the outlet of the Cherry Bomb... I
had originally bought a Monza tip from Pep Boys, but have opted
to leave it off... You can obviously go crazy here with the
tip, but I just intend to get them to weld on a single round
black tip, centered under the divet in the moulding of the
bumper... Call it the "retro" stealth look! ;) Perhaps
I'll paint it red later.... naaaahhh!! :)
Pics/sounds:
------------
Forthcoming! I'm trying to get a laptop rigged up so that
I can record some nice sounds and provide examples to those
folks who might want to do this (God bless ya! ;)... We
recorded the exhaust with a Sony cassette deck, but I'd
like to make some WAV/AU file so that you can be the
judge...
What's a Cherry Bomb?
---------------------
The Cherry Bomb is essentially a straight-through, free-flowing
muffler, or a glass pack (sp??)... The muffler just looks like
a tube and is painted red... The ends of the red tube have an
inlet and an outlet sized to fit your exhaust pipe/tip. For the
VR6, the exhaust pipe size is 2 1/4"... The Cherry Bomb that
I bought was about the length of the stock muffler (they come
in various sizes) and had a 2 1/4" inlet and outlet... It mated
up perfectly with the stock exhaust pipe... If you're interested,
I still have the box and can send you the exact dimensions of
the Cherry Bomb I bought...
You tend to run across the Cherry Bomb on a lot of American-
made muscle cars... There were some folks at the counter
in Pep Boys "razzing" me about the Cherry Bomb--it was quite
humorous! :) This might tend to make you shy away--DON'T!
I think that it's a nice compliment to the factory VR6
system...
Best of all, it comes with a nifty sticker that you can
put on your car! (BIG *grin* here--I hate stickers but this
one was too good to pass up!)
Stock exhaust notes:
--------------------
The stock factory exhaust piping is 2 1/4 inches and made by
Leistritz, apparently a big maker of high performance exhausts
in Europe.
The exhaust is very well made (I know, I had to cut through
the thing with a hacksaw!! ;)...
The configuration from the cat is:
cat--pipe--resonator--pipe--suitcase--pipe--exhaust:tips
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
C. Mark Skelton
Technical Evangelist - DAZEL Corporation
301 Congress Ave, Suite 1100, Austin, TX 78701
Voice: 512-494-7300 Pager: 800.SKYPAGE #1156935
Email: skelton@dazel<img src=/i/dc.gif border=0 width=35 height=15> Web: http://www.dazel.com/
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Mon Apr 26 11:01 CDT 1999