Philster

I already have permanent ringing of the years and hearing loss.

Too many fights, too many load boats, loud cars, nitro R/C, loud music, etc.

Point I was making is that it's not practical to try and converse at the RPM stated. And yes, loud noises can temporarily hurt your ears, and repeated exposure is permanently damaging.

The PSE hack and bypass pipe hack don't intrude much. Modest upgrade. Good upgrade.

I am dumping the loud exhaust... even though the growl, the roar, the pops and crackles on overrun... all are just intoxicating. It's glorious.

.

jrthe1

Gripster. I would like to buy your stock cans and help you clean out your garage. Please PM me.

Dan@SharkWerks

From the B&B site it looks like their exhaust is $764 and ours is $895, we will also discount for RL members if you call in or email us. I'd be more concerned theirs looks like a 100% copy of ours but they excluded clearance for PSE systems as well as a way to mount the exhaust to the car. It looks like it floats in place instead of attaching to the OEM exhaust mount point.

We owned a 2009 Carrera S and spent a lot of time developing and improving this product:
http://sharkwerks.com/porsche/997-ca...rt-type-i.html

Gripster

You have PM.

jglaze

My car has the Gundo hack now, which has a nice snarl, but feels a little tame. Though, I did just pick up some Fabspeed bypass pipes secondhand. I hope I don't regret the change, but I suspect my inner child (and my actual child) will appreciate the novelty at least for a little while. My wife may disagree...

phaphaphooey

I have nothing bad to say about Sharkwerks or your products and appreciate the support your company provides to the Porsche community. However, in response to your post, I will offer my thoughts/opinions.

I ordered from Jegs where the B&B is $573 shipped all day long. Same thing from LMperformance. If I were patient I probably could've gotten it cheaper.

I don't know if anyone copied anyone but I will agree that the systems look really similar. However, if you are trying to make pipes that replace the third muffler on 997.2, I am not sure there are many ways to go about it.

Tbh I agonized over whether it was worth the extra money to buy your product since both designs are essentially two metal pipes welded together. Either way you go is expensive with that in mind but I understand these are not Camaro exhausts and that as a result there is always some form of Porsche tax.

Regardless, I decided to take the chance on the B&B because it was cheaper and because I have had good experiences with their exhaust products in the past. Furthermore, if you compare the two designs, I felt that the B&B design took a slightly more direct path when you compare the manner in which, on the Sharkwerks, the pipe that comes off the driver's side cat seems to snake behind the other pipe before coming forward to connect to the passenger side muffler. However, it might simply be the angle of the picture on the Sharkwerks website vs the B&B picture. However, the routing is definitely different between the two designs if you compare the two. I felt the B&B routing was/is better. No idea if it actually is. I also liked that the B&B uses larger diameter pipe. This is clearly evident in the pictures. However, upon installation it ended up not mattering since both designs have to drop down to the same size to be slid inside the clamp that connects the pipe to the muffler. I don't have the Sharkwerks but I have obviously seen pictures and it seems as though it is a uniform pipe width throughout whereas the B&B is larger for the most part but then reduces down to fit inside the aforementioned clamp.

I was very concerned about the PSE clearance as I have PSE cans tbh as the pictures do make it look like it has less clearance than your design. However, they clear the PSE pipes that go into the dual exhaust tips just fine. I was worried it would rub or rattle if it fit at all but actually I had plenty of clearance.

You are correct that it floats and does not mount to the stock third muffler support. I did not like this but upon installation it seems quite solid and I have not had any unwanted vibrations or anything of that nature. At first I believed this was not preferable to the Sharkwerks design and time will tell if this is true. However, a potential unintended benefit is that some Sharkwerks installs on PSE cars will cause the vibration at idle that I have read so much about. My understanding is that it comes from this mounting point. With this mounting point removed from the equation, I have experienced no odd vibration at idle that was not present prior to the install. Time will tell whether this extra support is needed.

I will say that the installation instructions with the product were nonexistent which was disappointing but not entirely surprising given the price. The finish of the product as far as welds go and whatnot seemed quite good but the fit was pretty good but not great. I could not get the clamps that mate the pipes to the mufflers to line up quite right and as a result I have a very small exhaust leak from the clamps in which a small amount of water will leak out of the end of the clamp on cold start indicating a small leak. It does not cause an increase in sound as it is incredibly tiny but it still bothered me because, as you can tell from the several paragraphs I have written already about bypass pipes, I tend to obsess about things. I will say that the fault may not have been with the product, it may have been my install as I could not be more amateur in my mechanic skills. However, nothing I could do as far as realigning the exhaust could stop the small leak so I left it. Fwiw, others with Sharkwerks brand pipes have posted about the same thing so it certainly could be the install.

In summation, I have no doubt that the Sharkwerks are an excellent, and perhaps even better product than the B&B, which is/was rough around the edges in several areas. However, I could not justify the price delta between the two products to get an equivalent (or perhaps just slightly better) product.

phaphaphooey

I will also say that, if you want an X pipe that intermingles the exhaust flow instead of bypass pipes this source is much cheaper than Fabspeed and AWE: http://www.speedtechexhausts.com/ast1_016.htm

Wolfk

Decided to go with the full time PSE modification route, based on member recommendations and the experiment below. The photo shows the exhaust flow from the PSE outlet compared to the normal exhaust outlet. I was a little surprised at the difference in restriction between the two. The photo was taken while the engine was running at high idle.

Now I will pipe in the opened outlet and tie it into the normal exhaust outlet.

Dan@SharkWerks

Cheers and I appreciate that. I read your post and thank you for the detailed response. I did not mean to jump at you in any way - only defend our position and state a few things - 1) our product is not twice the price, 2) we are certainly not making twice the profit, and 3) there are differences that add up to a higher priced product.

Our goal is always to build the best product possible for the task - we are not a bargain basement shop and that's why we carry so few brands/products.

I'll be honest, there's no way we could sell our part for that cheap. These pipes look simple, but they certainly don't cost $200 to build for us. Or even $300 for a set. I won't share our costs, but we have to make enough margin on these to stay in business, and at $573 with shipping included, we would not make enough money on these for it to be worth it. Especially since ours probably cost significantly more to manufacture than theirs. I'll explain below. I won't compare their bottom dollar price to my MSRP, but if you want bottoms to bottoms, I could discount a bit to close the gap a little, and it wouldn't be as drastic as your original post claimed.

I don't know this LMP, but I know Jegs ships 100x the packages we do and can afford to sell things at lower margin due to their size and staff. Their shipping discounts are probably huge and they probably have a team of people doing the shipping. We have only 3 people at our shop, total.

If I send one of these exhausts to Florida for example, the cost of our packaging and UPS fees alone (not counting the time spent packing, time to take the order, and continued support of that product) would be around $65. I believe that for small businesses, there's really no such thing as "free shipping". Unfortunately large companies have made it seem like shipping is a tax of some sort and by offering it free, it doesn't cost anyone anything. It comes right out of our bottom line though and would drastically cut our margin. We sell the parts we do because we enjoy doing it, but at the end of the day this is a business for us. Without these margins, we couldn't continue doing what we do. We certainly couldn't have a Porsche on-hand for testing fitment and developing new parts, and probably could not operate in one of the most expensive regions in the USA. I know, people will say, "Well then move!" - OK, but that's not realistic in that our families, friends, customers, and clients are here.

This is true. I think I jumped to conclusions there. Looking at their design I see how they used a few different changes. It looks more like our older design that we revised a few times as well.

I agree - The flow difference between ours and theirs is minimal and I imagine neither would sound or make any more/less horsepower. I agree the diameter is necked down at both the side mufflers and the pipe reducer as you mentioned. The main difference between these designs is ours uses a mounting bracket and theirs doesn't, and that explains much of the price difference. Neither has restrictive bends (ours is CNC mandrel bent) and either could have plenty more exhaust going through it via a bigger engine before there would be a restriction here (vs the side mufflers, stock headers or cats, for example).

It's great that you're a loyal supporter of Billy Boat. If you have had good experiences with a company you should reward them with repeat business. That's good info for us, I'm glad they're the real deal and taking care of their customers.

I understand that for many people the price will be ultimately what determines which product to purchase. I believe we could do the following to be more along their pricing:
1) Remove our laser cut SS brackets that hold the exhaust to the car. These are rather complex to cut/brake (bend) and then have to be welded to the pipes. Then they have studs and spacers welded to those, and we supply SS washers, nuts, and 2x laser cut ~2"x3" SS plates to hold the pipe in place. If we didn't have the pipe mounted to the car, we could reduce the pipe cost by $100 or so right there. I'll have to do some testing to see how much it moves around without a mount. Generally we prefer to re-use the original Porsche exhaust mounting locations whenever possible and the cost seems worth it for us. I also wonder if they give replacements for the notorious rusty nuts that you remove off the cat flanges. We supply 6x new lock nuts for these as well that won't rust like the originals.

2) Mass production/distribution - this is where the "Porsche tax" might be seen by some. The real issue is there are just not enough of these cars out there to make 5000 of these, like you might do with a Camaro exhaust. If you build 500x 997 exhausts, you'll have an inventory on your shelf for the next 30 years. There are many less of these cars, and that's one reason they cost a lot more. Then comes in the "free shipping" that I mentioned above. We'll never be able to compete with a company that makes 1000s of exhaust a year for a dozen manufacturers and operates in a much cheaper location.

I understand some people want a product that's cheaper and that's OK. The part is probably a lot cheaper to manufacture for them and I imagine at the end of the day they make the same profit we do on each exhaust sold, if not more, or use distributors like Jegs to close that gap on volume.

Does the consumer deserve to pay for this in the end by buying our parts? No, and luckily there is competition so they can choose an alternative. But if we did not operate out of this area, we'd have much less exposure to these cars, and our expertise comes from being in the most Porsche-dense demographic in North America. And since we only work on Porsches and have owned this specific Porsche, our little team can answer questions that I imagine many competitors can't. This has to be factored into the cost a bit...

If you buy this exhaust and have issues with it, you can call and talk with us on the phone. All of us have installed this exhaust before. James has probably installed 100x of these since we started making them. And we've all driven the car, 1000s of miles, with this exhaust. The same goes for some of the competing exhausts, and other Porsches with similar exhausts, so we can give a good understanding prior to purchase of what someone's getting into. We've driven it with and without PSE. We've driven it with and without the Gundo/Fister hacks. 6 speed and PDK. And we've owned and lived with the car long enough that if you asked me about 100 unrelated items to the car, whether it's spark plug changes, suspension setup, or tire choices, I'll give you as much support as I can in those questions without charging you anything. I think that's worth something.

We even give this info out to everyone:
http://sharkwerks.com/porsche/porsch...09-2012-a.html

I don't know if Billy Boat has that kind of specific experience with these cars. Or if Jegs would be of any use if you called them.

Great, that was a challenge for us in developing the product for PSE compatibility.

Actually in my experience, it's been the non-PSE systems that are prone to vibration on aftermarket exhausts. Specifically, older PDK cars without PSE, and only when the A/C is on. I have never had a return on a PSE equipped car, or a complaint about vibration on the PSE car to my knowledge. I always tell people this is the ideal setup. I just installed one yesterday and there was zero added vibration.

Your pipe might last forever and our mount may be overkill. I do not believe it has an effect on the vibration on those non-PSE cars, but to test this I'd need a car that's got some bad vibration and I could remove and replace it with a model that does not have a mount. This is something I'll give a shot next time I have the opportunity.

Yes it could be. I know ours line up nicely if you follow the instructions and I never seen this before. I would find a lack of instructions and fitment issues to be of critical importance. I did see however a previous post you made, asking for our instructions for a second hand pipe, so at least we're not all bad

I really do appreciate your response. It's good for us to hear "the other side" and know that the competing products are good/bad and in what ways.

The takeaway I get from your post is that you realize there are some differences - at the end of the day you were looking for the "best deal on an exhaust pipe". Our model is to make the "best exhaust pipe possible" and hopefully be able to sell it for a fair price. We've rejected what would've been very cool products before because we couldn't meet our design requirements and also sell at a reasonable cost.

I think our mounting hardware / brackets account for a lot of the price difference on these. If we continue doing business here, paying premium welders in our region to build these, we will likely never be able to compete with the Billy Boat part on a price to price level. I think removing our brackets to reduce the price, omitting instructions etc. is simply cutting corners to again build a cheaper product, which was never our goal. But I'd have to do a lot of testing (for quite some time) to see if the pipes hold up well or move around too much without the bracket. Maybe you can mount a camera on the underside of the car to see how much it moves around

Mounting brackets:




Plates / hardware:


Instructions


Our flanges vs. theirs (bad photo but theirs are tack welded and look thin?):


Sorry for writing such a long response and crowding up this thread off-topic!

On point of this topic, the gundo/fister hack w/ or without center bypasses tend to sound great IMO. They are a bit loud, like the PSE being "ON" all the time. Still it's a nice alternative to the price of the PSE. The On/Off feature would be worth $3000 to me if I planned to keep the car for a long time.

love2drive

Here you go.

Watch "Before/After Sharkwerks Exhaust 2012 997.2 GTS" on YouTube

Hope you like the sound and looks of this Beautiful GTS, now with the amazing Sharkwerks center muffler bypass. Not sure if this video adequately demonstrates the before and after sound. I can tell you, it's significantly louder in dB and the tone is deeper. Very satisfying stationary as well moving at full revs.

Just a comment, the dealer did have "extra" difficulty removing the bolts, since they were rusted (car has 30k mi). Also the dealer said some brackets also needed to be replaced. So they bumped up their original quote of $300 in labor to install by another $330. I don't doubt the extra cost for parts and hasale for labor. I post this detail for everyone's bennifit to know in advance that there certainly may be added effort/costs involved, particularly depending on how much rust set in under there. I guess it would have been nice to have a more accurate quote upfront. Also it would be nice if Sharkwerks would provide the necessary brackets and bolts for a quality install. The added cost isn't too much of an issue, what bugs me most is the extra day's wait for the parts (brakets) to be delivered.

All in all, I love the modification. I think it improves the auditory experience placing the driver that much closer to the machine's soul.

phaphaphooey

Thanks for the in depth reply Dan. I agree that we will stop crowding this thread. My takeaway is that we are fortunate in the Porsche community to have options. Your products are well made, thoroughly tested, and you stand behind them. Other cheaper products are a roll of the dice. The Porsche is my 5th car and is my around town run about so I was willing to roll the dice with B&B and overall I am mostly satisfied for now with that decision. Others have not been so fortunate. Someone else posted in another thread that they tried to fit a B&B to a PSE equipped car, didn't have the clearance for the second muffler tail pipe, and is now having trouble returning it. I have no idea what was different on that car vs mine but obviously something is different. Obviously they learned a lesson and are ordering a SW. If I had read that prior to ordering mine the fitment issue probably would've scared me enough that I would've ponied up the extra money for the SW product as there is no question about its engineering, design, or quality.

Dan GSR

The bb flanges are thicker than the sw, which actually makes it little harder to install. And the bb flange is fully welded on the inside of the tubing, only the outside is tacked

Dan@SharkWerks

Cool video, thank you for making that before and after

Really sorry that you had some extra work required - unfortunately Porsche chose to use a steel that's notorious for rusting under the right circumstances on the header bolts. I'm not sure what bracket they had you replace (there are 5x or so items I would call "brackets" on the original exhaust, plus a few clamps and many bolts/studs). Did they give you the original parts they replaced, or can they supply part numbers so we can see which items they're talking about?

We don't recommend replacing the header studs unless they break. It's a lot of work (2+ hours) to remove the headers and replace the studs (since the cats are part of the header and cost a FORTUNE if they're damaged by hammering etc., so I would never recommend using a hammer to remove the old studs) We can't really predict what might be damaged on an original car's exhaust and I would hate to sell someone $1000 in parts that wouldn't be required, or add extra work by telling the installer to replace every part which they would charge extra to install.

Based on your feedback I will update our product page and instructions to recommend that the original exhaust components are inspected prior to removal to be sure there isn't heavy rust. Sometimes it's clear to see, but other times you wouldn't know until they're taken apart. Every car is different and there's no way to know what the job entails until it's removed, much like replacing brake pads and finding out you also need a wheel bearing or hydraulic line replaced.

I'm truly sorry you had to pay to replace other parts on the car. I hope they used a steel bolt for the header that will outlast the original if they went through the trouble of replacing them.

Dan@SharkWerks

Thanks, that's too nice of you to say I think we can all agree that either way if you can get the center muffler off the car, it really transforms the sound and I'm glad everyone gets to the same result/conclusion one way or another.

Dan@SharkWerks

Ah okay - it looks smaller in the pic. We use 5/16" I believe. I think my ideal approach would be to tool and stamp a flange like the original, but we don't have access to the tooling required for that at this time.