Backna911

Found a local place here in MD....having it done in the morning. Will report back !

Spokane5150

Are you going with 1.75" or 2"? 2" is suppose to be pretty loud. FD does 1.75" and it sound great. I be tempted to go with the 2" or 2.25"

cgfen

excellent advice,
that's what I did.
$80 and off the road for one day.
easilly doable with jackstands = no lift required.

Craig

malexgcab

I found out muffler is not covered under CPO, so I wanna do gundo hack. Does anyone know if there is a DIY for muffler removal?

Thanks

Poshaman

Try this link.
http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/9...-hack-way.html

Backna911

Well NO luck today.....the shop in MD looked at the mufflers and determined it was a little more involved. They didn't feel comfortable.

Poshaman

I checked with many local shops and they didn't want to touch my car. One local performance shop wanted $480 to get it done and that was just too expensive.

Spokane5150

So the big issue here is the holes that need to be cut into both 2-1/4" muffler tubes. A hole saw is ideal because the hole is perfect but some of the muffler shops appear to be using a plasma cutter. Plasma requires a steady hand. I don't know for sure but it looks like FD Motorsports uses an elbow connecting tube and uses a hole saw in the side of the tube. If the muffler shop uses a plasma cutter it would be nice if they clean the whole with a drimmel tool to achieve a smooth transition. The next step is to cut the connecting tube and radius the tube ends to match radius of the muffler 2-1/4" tubes. Next step is to saddle weld the connecting tube onto the muffler with a MIG Welder or preferably a TIG Welder. TIG protects the weld so it doesn't oxidize during welding and later rust out due to the elements. You guys up in the salted road areas should be concerned about this. You can get good work done or you can get some bad work done. FD Motorsports does the best work I've seen and his quality looks fantastic. Match that with one of his optional Ceramic Coatings and you have a beautiful muffler that won't be compromised by the elements. See below:

FD Motorsports Work below:



Some work from local muffler shops:

PHX 911

Can't make those cuts with a hole saw.
They're likely done with an end mill, and interpolating the radius of the gundo pipe diameter with a side cut, or even more likely, a plunge cut with the same diameter end mill as your pipe (1.75, 2.0", etc.)
That's my guess why his muffler shop passed. At a minimum, you need a machine tool like a Bridgeport mill to do the cuts, which is beyond the capability of most "muffler" shops.
Welding is the easy part, relatively speaking.

USMC_DS1

Looks like FD is the way to go. That hack with ceramic looks better than the factory version. The local muffler shops probably don't want to take on the liability... especially if it's their 1st hack. Sounds like FD has perfected the hack and likely has all the jigs and tools to do it properly. BTW, a used Porsche exhaust runs north of $600 from DCAuto(dismantler).

mjsporsche

Agree -

I am one who likes easy and highest quality. I attempted to do a Gundo Hack and the local muffler places were not very sure about stainless steel pipe, and required welding material. And some of the Gundo hacks I have seen look like 1st time hack jobs.

If you want excellent work, great service and the work done to the highest level, why mess around with local yoyos. FD Motorsports.
And you can get it nicely finished and it will look like a $1000 set up mufflers.

No affiliation, yada yada.

jason74

i had previously contacted him and he seemed fine with doing an exchange after the fact since this is my DD.

Spokane5150

After looking at a few photo's and my buddies C2 I decided the extra $200 was worth it. Plus, if you go with the Ceramic Coating you get some performance improvments. From what I understand the ceramic helps hold in the heat keeping the area around the mufflers cooler which is a benefit in those close quarters. It's only $170 extra so I had Darin hook me up. He told me that after he welds in the connector tubes they bead tumble the mufflers to get that nice chrome look after which they do the clear ceramic.

I'll take some nice photo's when they get here the end of next week.

mjsporsche

Good decision. I actually went in a different direction when I came across someone who decided to sell their low mileage, perfect set of Fabspeeds for a very reasonable price. If that did not happen, I would have the Fisters on my car.

stefang

Sadly right now he doesn't have any .2 mufflers to do a core exchange, so I'm going to have to wait. Well, I don't *have* to, I could take the car off the road for a week or so.