Gemballa exhaust
 

Took delivery of my 1999 arctic silver/black C2 today from the Porsche dealer. Thanks to everyone who helped me with my car buying decision. I love this car! 1st day with the car and I'm already shopping for upgrade goodies.

I searched the archives and found some good comments about the Gemballa exhaust. Gemballa North America is selling its 996 exhaust brand new on ebay for $899. Is this too good to be true or are their better exhaust choices/values out there? Can I use my factory S/S tips with this exhaust?

<a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1842483049" target="_blank">Gemballa exhaust on eBay</a>

Should I buy this or save my money for something else such as a suspension upgrade?

John: Congrats on your new P-Car! I also have a 99 C2 Arctic Silver/ (but Metropol interior). I had the Fabspeed Maxflow exhaust installed and am very satisfied. I have not heard the Gemballa system. The Fabspeed ran $995 plus $70 for install.

John,

Search the archives for threads on aftermarket exhausts. Some of them cause a power loss in the mid-range RPMs. I know several folks that have removed their aftermarket exhaust for this reason and gone with the Porsche Sport exhaust. Noise does not always equal power - there is no HP gain without changing the cats (maybe illegal in some states) and so the goal is to NOT lose power. I'm not trying to sell the Porsche sport exhaust I just hate to see folks disappointed or misled.

Performance-wise the ROW M030 Sport Suspension is a better investment (IMHO).

If Viken is around I'm sure he can add more...

That's a great price on the Gemballa exhaust, I've heard good things about them. I have the Ruf exhaust, they are also quite nice.The Rufs have a nice "air cooled" rumble at low RPM and really scream at full throttle. I've been told they sound like a GT3 or 911RS. The car definitely pulls harder through all RPM ranges, in fact it seems to pull even harder since the DME was reprogrammed under recall/"campaign". I'm not sure about HP gains,if any, Weissach told me 10 ;) FWIW. My buddy just installed Fabspeeds on his '02 Cab and they sound great, very low key off idle with a racy sound with higher revs. Very impressive products, both the Ruf and the Fabs.
AS far as suspension, RoW 030 is the best street setup out there IMO, you can get some really good prices online. Try Gert <a href="http://www.carnewal.com" target="_blank">www.carnewal.com</a> <img src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="[cheers]" />

John,

I have the Gemballa exhaust installed on my 01 C2 cab. I bought the exhaust straigt from Gemballa off of eBay (I left positive feedback as "mojovegas").

You can re-install the factory tips.

Overall I am very pleased. The exhaust has a very nice throaty rumble under acceleration, but there is no booming or resonance at highway speeds.

I do feel the sound is more subdued than the fabspeeds I have heard....but I wanted more of a "reserved & powerful" sound than a "boy racer" sound. (No offence to Fabspeed owners...this is why they make vanilla and chocolate) :)

There were no problems with the installation and Gemballa was great to deal with directly.

If I can answer anything else for you please don't hesitate to ask.

I'll just add my $.02 by saying that I had another aftermarket exhaust (a top brand which was beautifully made BTW) and took it off in favor of the Porsche sport exhaust. Maybe I should have waited longer than 2 weeks to see if the DME would adjust, but my experience was that there was a slight (but noticeable) loss of mid range torque and a bit of boominess at some RPM's. Rather than experiment endlessly with other exhausts or try to rely on other's well meaning opinions about exhausts they had already spent money on, I went with the Porsche piece. Fortunately the retailer I dealt with gave me full credit on the previous exhaust. I figured that no one could design a better sport exhaust for a Porsche than Porsche. From the beginning, there was no power loss that I could detect, and absolutely no boom, resonance or vibration of any kind, at any speed, at any RPM. And FWIW, I love the sound from this exhaust. So that's my "well meaning opinion". :) Good luck with your choice.

From what I've read, I cannot go wrong with either Gemballa or Fabspeed with the Fabspeed being a bit louder. At $899 and $995, there isn't much price difference either while the Porsche sport exhaust costs around $2K. For the price of the Porsche exhaust, I can get either a Gemballa or Fabspeed and still have enough money left over for the ROW 030 parts. To me, that sounds like the way to go.

Another advantage to using an aftermarket exhaust is they are lighter then the stock exhaust(the sport exhaust weighs 2-3 lbs more then stock due to electronics) by about 20-25 lbs. I couldn't tell you how Gemballa's sound but like they say it's a personal preference. Advantages of coarse with the sport exhaust is easy installation and it's porsche brand. I have the Fabs and to my ear they sound great and like you said you can get the exhaust plus the ROW 030 at slightly more then the sport exhaust alone. Like Loren said with any aftermarket exhaust you may notice loss in hp unless you plan to chip the car to go with the aftermarket exhaust. I did notice a loss of trq which is hardly noticeable until you have a passenger in the car and going up steep hills. After ECU was reprogrammed it was restored. Main thing you want is good sound and no major loss of power. Good luck and have fun-It's a great car!!! Regards. Mike

Mike (996FLT6),

If I go ahead and get the Fabspeed, how and where do I go to get the ECU reprogrammed to match the Fabspeed and how much does the reprogramming cost? Thanks.

I did the Unichip(piggyback ecu) over at THE RACER's GROUP(ask for Tony who does the tuning)at Sear's Point. Nice thing with the Unichip is they can fine tune whatever mods you plan to do in the future if you decide on other mods(of coarse always an addtional fee unless you put everything at once ie intake/cats/headers etc. It ran about $800 and additional $400 if you want a switch for 2 maps for octane. Also in an event your selling the car you can take the whole assembly off and transfer to another car so all you have to pay later is the tuning part which I thought offers better flexibility. But what I recommend first off is put on the exhaust first and drive for 300 miles(ecu will adapt) or so and see if you notice the loss in hp/trq(it didn't adapt for me after 300 or so miles). If it's not too noticeable to you then I would make my priority towards short shifter/suspension(best bang for the buck). It gets more expensive if you plan to lighten up the car which IMO will yield the best power gains. Regards. Mike

[quote]Originally posted by 996FLT6:
<strong>Another advantage to using an aftermarket exhaust is they are lighter then the stock exhaust(the sport exhaust weighs 2-3 lbs more then stock due to electronics) by about 20-25 lbs.</strong><hr></blockquote>

The hook up wiring etc. for the factory sport exhaust weighs next to nothing....maybe a pound at most, which, if you don't install the bypass controls (I didn't) is irrelevant. There is about a 1.5 pound difference per muffler because of the bypass tube, heat shield, and vacuum valve assembly so the total difference is about 3 pounds between the stock exhaust and the factory sport. (I put on that much weight after a good steak dinner. :) )Anyway, your 2-3 pound difference turns out to be accurate.

I do question the 20-25 pound weight savings for aftermarket exhausts though. The factory sport mufflers weigh 22 pounds each. To get the weight savings you mention, the aftermarket exhausts would have to weigh about 10 pounds each. It's hard to imagine a stainless steel muffler free of resonance, and of quality construction, weighing that little. Just my thoughts.

BTW the factory sport exhaust is available for about $1650 including shipping from Carnewal. The $2000 price mentioned above is a bit high. Regards.