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Spent my Saturday morning installing a set of Soul Performance CAT-Bypass pipes. Thought I would share some initial thoughts... I purchased them with the catted O2 spacers, more on that later. Sound is great, it's far from aggressive and there is zero drone even with the PSE valves open. I've had catted systems that were louder than this, very pleased with the sound. Additionally the smell isn't bad at all. You can tell, but it's far from bad. I'm at 5K feet elevation and can only get 91 octane so that may be part of it.
I have to commend Soul on their packaging. Was probably some of the best packaging I've ever seen on exhaust components. Not a chance for shipping damage to occur unless a forklift drives over it. Finish on the pipes was very nice, and the weld quality was consistent with good penetration. I took a remote camera and looked at the inside and their welders do a nice job. My only SLIGHT criticism would be that you can still see the scrapes / striations from the mandrel bending flange, these could be minimized before coating, but this is only cosmetic and I'm just being picky. Very happy with the fit and finish.
Install was more of a challenge than expected. I budgeted 3 hours as I've installed way more exhaust components on than I care to admit. I like throwing money away on exhaust mods the minute I purchase a new ride The actual install took me nearly five hours including getting the car on ramps and then jack stands. The instructions don't mention it, but if you are doing this on ramps or jack stands, just remove the damn wheels. Of all things I fought the passenger turbo heat shield for 45 minutes before I said screw it and threw the car on jack stands to remove the wheels. I have smaller hands, but I have no idea how you would get one of the heat shield bolts out without removing the wheel and coming at it from the wheel well. This was my first mistake and I would have easily saved an hour doing this in the first place.
Instructions are good, I was surprised to see that they didn't include any torque values though. I'm OCD about this so I looked in the service manual and reached out directly to Soul. I submitted an email on Tuesday morning and John responded with values less than 30 minutes later. Great customer service! I've seen people say they didn't need to drop the rear muffler, I don't know how they did it without. If you don't drop the rear section there would be a decent amount of leverage put on the turbo flange stud and I would be concerned about damaging while forcing things apart. Just drop the rear section, it's easy and takes a few minutes. Once it's on the ground you can just remove everything and loosely fit up the new pipes. Actual install troubles / wasted time consisted of two frustrating items... First, the bracket that Soul welds to the pipes for the heat shield was a bit off on both pipes. I could install 3 out of the 4 heat shield bolts, but the top rear one wouldn't line up. I was able to slightly flex the shield on the drivers side and it lined up with some pressure, the passenger side would never line up and is off by nearly a 1/4" but the other 3 lined up perfectly. The actual pipe bracket needed to be bent slightly, you could see that the bend radius at the top flat was off, but I wasn't going to drop everything again to do that.
Second frustration was the O2 sensor spacers. These aren't referenced at all in the instructions and you have to fiddle with spacing and orientation endlessly to find the right height and rotation to get everything in. I'm unhappy with the stress that they put on the O2 sensor wiring as well. Even after I unclipped the wiring harness it's a very tight radius getting into the spacers. Why they don't use 45 degree spacers like others I'm not sure. I easily wasted 30-45 minutes playing with this, but best I can tell is there is only one orientation that they will install. No CEL after 100 miles or so, but time will tell. Very concerned with the tension on the wiring and that this will be point of failure. Also, @Soul Performance Mike had confirmed in another thread to me that two different styles of O2 spacers would be included as that is now their standard. I only receive the catted version, not the basic version??
Pics below of the spacer install, you can see how tight the fit is. Mike, does this look like the right orientation to you? Overall if I did the install again, knowing what I know now, I'm sure I could do it in 2.5-3 hours. Hopefully this helps some of you guys out, the tips would be the same for the sport cat install, except you wouldn't be using spacers.
Nice write up. Thank you for this. I love my bypass pipes. The sound is absolutely perfect with the stock PSE exhaust now. I heard the shop that installed mine ran into some fitment issues too. Another thing, do yourself a favor and call Protomotive and get a tune and you won't need the spacers and will have a huge smile at the power.
Nice write up. Thank you for this. I love my bypass pipes. The sound is absolutely perfect with the stock PSE exhaust now. I heard the shop that installed mine ran into some fitment issues too. Another thing, do yourself a favor and call Protomotive and get a tune and you won't need the spacers and will have a huge smile at the power.
I've been going back and forth with myself on the tune. I'm pretty local to a couple well respected tuners, my only hang up is the whole disassemble the rear of the car to remove the ECU then opening up the ECU. I know you have to pay to play, I just haven't convinced my brain yet!
Thanks for the write up.
Was contemplating having these installed but apparently there is still manufacturing/quality control issues that have yet to be resolved.
To me it's more trouble than it's worth.
I'll pass.
Thanks for the write up.
Was contemplating having these installed but apparently there is still manufacturing/quality control issues that have yet to be resolved.
To me it's more trouble than it's worth.
I'll pass.
I wouldn't remotely say there are manufacturing issues. Everything I listed is very minor and I'm a picky guy. Was just several things that added some time. I'm happy with the quality.
I wouldn't remotely say there are manufacturing issues. Everything I listed is very minor and I'm a picky guy. Was just several things that added some time. I'm happy with the quality.
I am not blaming your write up alone with my decision.
I have read multiple other posts where the parts were not "plug & play" and folks had a difficult time with the install.
Shouldn't be that way and for me that's a deal breaker.
I was fiddling around on YouTube yesterday and caught an interesting video of Soul making a custom exhaust for Larry the Ammo guy for his R8. Not a 911, but you can see the work they put into their systems.
For what it is worth I am getting a pair of their exhaust tips and I told them I was not in a rush and to take their time, which they appreciated since they were working on a custom Lambo set up so the word is getting out that they are doing high quality work, and their customer service is top notch. I was told that if my installer had any questions he should call them and questions would be addressed during the install so to those that run into such a situation you might save yourself some stress!
I installed the Cargraphic bypass pipes on mine after an X51 PowerKit upgrade I had BGB do mine. I'm here to tell y'all the sound is awesome with PSE on!! The turbos seem to spool up a bit quicker. Love the dual turbo whistles when moving around in a parking lot in Sport or especially in Sport +. The only thing I don't like is they threw a CEL. Have the catted O2 sensors, but the light came on anyway at 25 miles. Oh well!
Catless pipes are the best bang for the buck you can spend on a 991.2 Sounds like it's 200+ cubic inches bigger. Assuming you don't have that annual inspection. And assuming you are unwilling to go the tuner route with an almost new 911 that is still under warranty. You quickly get used to the smell when starting it in the garage 😊
Well, I got nearly 400 miles before the CEL. Hooked my computer up this evening, Bank 1 Sensor 2 voltage discrepancy... Not surprised, but I was hopeful. Will try one different type of O2 sensor spacer and then decide what if I got with a tune or back to sport cats.
I got the CEL at about 25 miles, even with the O2 catted extensions, so u did better than i.
From what i hear and read, a tune will take care of it.. A guy i know with GTS and Cobb time has had no CEL. Im not going to backtrack $3k just to fix the CEL.
Just installed catless bypass pipes and tripped the cel with same codes within 50 miles also. Not too concerned about it as I haven’t noticed any degradation in engine performance.
For those who are catless and tuned, has anyone been able to pass their state emissions test via OBDII port?
01-13-2019, 12:39 PM
Installed Soul Performance CAT-Bypass Pipes
The actual install took me nearly five hours including getting the car on ramps and then jack stands. The instructions don't mention it, but if you are doing this on ramps or jack stands, just remove the damn wheels. Of all things I fought the passenger turbo heat shield for 45 minutes before I said screw it and threw the car on jack stands to remove the wheels. I have smaller hands, but I have no idea how you would get one of the heat shield bolts out without removing the wheel and coming at it from the wheel well. This was my first mistake and I would have easily saved an hour doing this in the first place.
