Amalgam

Saw and heard a sharkwerks exhaust on a 997.2 gt3 in action yesterday and I liked it. Sharkwerks now has a 991 version of it and the pricing is quite reasonable. Anyone has any experience to share regarding the 991 exhaust?

Dan@SharkWerks

Hi Amalgam -
It's early still so you probably won't find much on our 991 system, but here's a little video showing the basics of the system:

Of course videos never tell the whole story, but we should have more videos within a couple weeks, and more customer feedback.

To be honest it's very different than the 997 GT3 exhausts, because it bypasses 2 of the 3 mufflers instead of 1 of 3, and the engine is different on the GT3. The 991 has a deeper sound, but less revs so it's not quite as exotic sounding at the redline. I would say it's a little more aggressive than a GT3 with our exhaust.

Here's the product info if you haven't seen it:
http://sharkwerks.com/products.php?pid=398

kosmo

wow! so in the 997.2 the center muffler was deleted and the 2 sides were retained but now on the 991 the center is retained and 2 sides are deleted? thats gotta be some good weight savings!

Amalgam

Thx for the post Dan. I have a base carrera and on your site it says the exhaust needs S type exhaust tips. Does that means I have to purchase the tips o n top of the exhaust?

kosmo

^ yes

yxc145

Wait.. correct me if I am wrong. The "system" is just two really long bent pipe with quad tips?? And they cost $1000?!!!

kosmo

Tips are not included.

yxc145

That's crazy. I think a good, experience muffler shop can probably fabricate that for 1/4 of the price.

I thought PSE is expensive. All those systems on the website are insanely priced.

kosmo

welcome to Porsche. You should see what prices are for Ferrari and Lambo!

Amalgam

Lambo. Tubi Exhaust $5000

ny991

A friend had a wheel bearing go on his 430 Challenge, Ferrari was there to fix it for $3,400 at the track.

sharkster

As part of the community I hope you don't mind but I figured I would try to address /explain and hopefully not bore you too much in the process. I'm all for DIY'ing and over the years we've certainly encouraged and/or helped explain what/how to do that (for free). I'm on an iphone so my options are a bit limited too (sorry for any typos and what not).

As an ex DIY'er myself I know it would be really hard to reproduce something of this quality in terms of the tools used, R&D, precision, materials etc... for $250. We haven't officially released our part yet but as with all of our previous exhaust offerings I know we've been on the lower end of the "expense" scale vs often 4, 5, 6 and in some cases 13k offerings! Sure we try to always go with something that fits, sounds and flows well as simply and as best as we can (now let me go into that statement- and sorry if I've put you to sleep).

Assuming you were to buy or pay for high grade steel tubes, then bypass steps like robotically bend, swedge, precision cut and tig-weld. You'd also need to R&D here and make a jig perhaps based on some stock mufflers for which you'd need a donor car and extra exhaust (and more for PSE etc...) to make sure fitment is ok. Once you've designed, then CAD drawn and made a prototype you'd want to test fit and make adjustments as needed. Maybe you could have someone lend you these tools for free, there is always that possibility. I figured most muffler shops are used to welding in cats on a Tundra or working on so many different vehicles where as we only specialize in Porsche. You'd have to be comfortable that they could take apart your car without damaging and putting it back together. The 991 bumper removal (which is required for these things) is tougher and more of a hassle than on the 997s sadly. I'm sure the muffler shop would charge something for that too... Plus how good is the welding going to be? Will it hold up on the track or not etc...? Then you need to figure out some sort of mounting solution... this is where it gets tricky. You need to do this absolutely dead right or you'll get a lot of vibration and or other unwanted side effects. I won't go too much into but try pricing out just a set of the reciprocating exhaust mounts for both sides. We chose to make something that was factory fit- not the easy option either but they did it that way for a reason. These DFI engines and exhausts have are so prone to vibration as we learned on the 997. Then you'd need hardware/bolts etc... And indeed by that time a muffler shop might well charge you north of $700 or so and that would be very cheap for a one off (often they charge more for that). So in terms a 1/4 of the price I think you might be thinking of the old 996 and 997 "Gundo Hack" as its called. Sure in that case it really is only a short tube welded on both mufflers that connects and bypasses like a PSE. Even that service usually costs $280 (not including the labor to install/remove) on average and that is indeed a much different thing. I've seen it done decently well for $280 and then I've seen some that have completely come apart as not all muffler shop jobs are equal. On our side as much as I'd like to do this for free and honestly we all do a lot of stuff for free at the shop too we have the list above and beyond to cover. We've also got to make sure that it's something we reproduce and is reliable each time, along with boxing, shipping (the labor to do it) etc.. all which isn't free either. We have to feed those guys too

Thinking about ways for us to make it a couple of hundred less... There's always cheaper materials and labor force. Sure one could make these off-site in China/Taiwan with shoddy material but the thought of 13/14 year old kids working for pennies and essentially being abused since their labor laws are so different doesn't exactly sound appealing either. Sorry in a previous life I visited many motherboard/video card factories in Asia during the late 90s and early 2000s. The level of exploitation didn't get erased from my memory and as an owner of a California based US company with really good (but yes expensive!) tools and workers at my disposal I also feel for a couple of hundred more it's well-worth the effort and resultant quality to keep our corner of the US economy going

I've gone on too long so if you're not asleep by now I know I've missed out a lot of the process and costs involved here but hopefully you get some idea etc.... I haven't posted close ups of these (usually because others end up copying and sending it to Asia etc...) but I know the folks that have seen/heard it thus far have been pretty stoked having owned our previous products on older gen cars. We haven't yet officially released these except to our local and existing customers but we're close to doing a full-on launch soon...

I'm glad there is always a choice and on our part we're really here to make Porsche enthusiasts a bit more excited/happy about an already great platform. We've always said we are not twisting anyone's arm to buy from us and even if you do and for whatever reason you don't jive with it just send it back full refund. We're not into making people unhappy and indeed everyone at Shark Werks could/should and/or already has done other more financially rewarding work but we do want to keep swimming too.

I'm not going to speak for Tubi but I am comfy with their price as far as the quality, sound et al. Everyone that's had it installed has liked it and hence we offer it. There are a lot of 5-6k exhausts I don't offer and won't because they don't fit the criteria...

PS Oh and those rubber sharks y'all seem to like so much- they're not free either lol! Well hopefully your kids end up getting into sharks and not eating shark fin soup as a result. In fact, the proceeds for those lil' guys goes to a charity too...

sharkster

Yep there's a real 20 pound weight savings (stock muffler weighs 25 pounds each total) from the rear of the car. Plus you remove the heat away from the tires... For track folks that's a useful side effect
I'd say honestly the 991 and DFI engine never sounds as good as the GT3s. It just can't but it's already a good stock sounding Porsche vs the 997. Our set up is a good deal more aggro if that's what you're in to. We'll probably have more videos and the like when we release the thing fully.... We bounced around a few designs since the launch of the car and it was/still is a tough nut to crack. The stock sounding 991 is so much better than any of the 997, 996 cars that came before it. A lot of things we tried actually made it sound worse. We tried various design like replacing the center with pipes or an X and it didn't pan out. Made for good scrap metal;P

Dalema

Good information above. I'm thoroughly enjoying my base 991 with my only regret being not getting the PSE - so this definitely perked my interest.

I didn't realize you were local up in Fremont (I'm in SJ) - so will have to drop by. Was the demo video a customer or personal car - wondering if I could hear the set up in person?

Amalgam

Hi Alex,

Thanks for the info. I agree when one launches a product out there, there are more considerations to it than just bending and soldering some pipes. Droning and safety are 2 examples of the concerns.

Rolando from Canada had asked me to contact you as he recently had his GT3 exhaust upgraded. I do however have a question for you:

As many other exhaust upgrades available outthere do offer a version for the Base 991 and another version for the S 991... will Shark Werks offer a version for the base 991 without having to get S tips in the near future? Although reasonably priced just below $1000, the tips and the exhaust upgrade together will cost near $2000.