As I posted before, I really like my 997TT but feel it is a little too quiet. This is new territory for me since I am not fond of loud exhausts except in certain situations. Generally I think a daily driver should be unobtrusive, but in a car with such a fantastic performance envelope a little aural feedback is nice.

A.W.E. has impressed me and I decided to take the plunge with their system. My mechanic installed it last weekend along with a LIDAR jammer (more on that in another post) and return of my car was delayed due to travel and some installation questions on the jammer.

I have been driving the car now for a week and have made some observations which I’ll list below. I’ll also include some pics, and as soon as I de-mux the wrench’s video I’ll post his vids and sound clips on youtube.

-Considerably louder, but not too loud. As I said, I didn’t want it real LOUD, just more consistant with the vehicle. At full throttle it does roar, but tooling around it humms nicely and quiets right down in medium or off throttle.
-More importantly, it retains the note/timbre of the factory exhaust, deep and muscular, not screaming so much as, well, roaring. This is really nice since I really think the overall note of the exhaust is quite good, just too quiet in stock form.
-No obvious resonances/drones. I hate that! My 360 with a Tubi would do that around 2800 RPM which fell in cruising range. Bummer!

-Now the really really cool part; Performance!!! Now I don’t know if it is really just more HP/TQ, or if it’s just back pressure relief, but one of the things about a stock unit was noticeable T-lag when you really kick it. Not no more my friends. Now it is very close to the promise Porsche makes in their literature about the vario-vane design. You punch it, it jumps, right NOW.

Perhaps one of the fellas from A.W.E. will read this and tell us why it is this way, but I can tell you…it IS this way. No, it’s not a different car, it just has a very significantly more responsive throttle. Before I didn’t like the non-Sport mode since I felt between the lag and Tip it was too slow, now standard mode is just fine and Sport is a razor’s edge. Very cool. This is what I expected.

 

I hope you enjoyed the lollipop too

You reduced the back pressure significantly and with such good flow your turbos have the ability to spool up a lot faster. That's one of the real benefits of a good exhaust on any 996TT/997TT. Enjoy! We're doing a couple here shortly as well

 

Lollipop? You mean there was a lollipop in the pack? That's funny. I'll bet my mechanic gave it to his girlfriend. You should see her. She's a hottie who is a Porsche mechanic at another dealer. Georgous and a wrench too, a guy's dream.

 

Oh man you should see our collection.... Every single time anything comes from AWE you can expect the lollipop too. In this instance I think it's fair to say the lollipop went to good use.....

 

Are those 100 cell cats?

 

Someone with more knowledge than me would have to tell us. perhpas there is a lurker...

 

From the AWE website :
Utilizing 14 and 16 gauge 304 Stainless Steel and German made 200 cell metal core catalysts, our muffler has been dyno proven to deliver a huge 23 crank horsepower and 30 crank torque improvement over stock in both normal and overboost modes. Meanwhile, our power improvements have come with no sacrifice to sound quality

 

Do the dealers ever install these systems if you supply them? Are there any issues with warrenty? thanks

 

I know that there is a dealer in my area who does. And as long as there is no evidence that the system caused the failure there is no efffect on the warrenty.

But I have also heard that some dealers consider emptying an ashtray a violation. You can check with yours.

 

Allegretto,

Thanks for that great post. We are very pleased that you are so pleased with the system.

Regarding the improved boost response with the system: you are not imagining it!

See this graph as measured on our chassis dyno. It documents the boost onset improvements we measured with our system vs stock:

http://www.awe-tuning.com/media/dyno...WE_muffler.jpg

Not only did we cut back pressure in half, but our design promotes efficient turbo spool through use of a 3.75" diameter pressure expansion chamber right off the turbo. See the picture below:



Dropping back pressure throughout the system helps improve exhaust flow, which results in more power at high turbine speeds when the air mass is high.

However, having an immediate pressure drop after the turbine wheel through use of an expansion chamber is an established method to really improve turbine response, getting the turbine up to speed faster. The increased response equals less boost lag. This is a feature we have not seen on any other aftermarket system currently available.

For readers who may not be familiar, here are some further notes on our 997TT muffler:

We use a balance pipe between the muffler cans to smooth out the tone of the exhaust, resulting in that deeper and rricher version of the stock sound allegretto noted. We did extensive testing with and without the balance pipe, and we actually improved power with a properly sized one along with improving sound quality.

We also use factory straps to attach our muffler cans to the factory carrier, ensuring excellent fit.

A bonus is the extra O2 sensor bung that we place before a cat to allow quick and easy air/fuel measurements for you performance tuning junkies.

Like all our Porsche mufflers, these are assembled in house using OEM quality packing materials. As you can see from allegretto's pictures, our mufflers are a straight through design. We are able to achieve civilized sound volume through the use of OEM quality packing materials that have been extensively tested for temperature and vibrational integrity. Packing materials that will stand up to the extreme temps and vibrations of the closely coupled Porsche mufflers are *very* expensive, which is why most exhaust manufacturers shy away from using them, instead choosing to use no packing material at all or a baffled design. No packing material at all results in a louder systems prone to drone, while a baffled system is quieter but poor for flow (power).

Anyway, our next batch of systems is almost ready to go:




Any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!

 

Thanks for the detailed info , I like it a lot !

Some questions :

1/ what is the weight saving compared to the stock system ?

2/ do you have a European distributor ?

 

Our system with cats saves 8lbs over the stock muffler/cat assembly.

I have seen other manufacturers claiming much higher weight savings with their systems, but the use of 14 and 16 gauge stainless steel tubing and sheet metal along with heavy duty German high flow catalysts will not result in that kind of weight savings.

Thinner gauge materials, US produced cats, or hollow muffler assemblies can shave off more weight, but these are not elements we wanted to incorporate into this system.

Our systems come with a lifetime warranty (one year on cats), so they are really built for the long haul. Not only for customer satisfaction, but also because we do not want to waste time on fixing failed systems under warranty, we want to keep buidling new systems!


Our largest European distributor would be Regal Autosport in the UK:

Regal Autosport
72-82 Belgrave Road
Portswood, Southampton, SO17 3AN
UK
www.regal-auto.co.uk/
+442380558636
sales@regal-auto.co.uk

Speak to Chris.

Thanks for your interest in our products!

 

Todd, do you have a picture of the car's rear on the ground with the exhaust installed?
Does the box protrude below the bumper and is it visible from behind?
Thanks in advance.

 

Here is a pic of the rear:



The lower edge of the cans peek out just enough to see the personalized serial badge we affix to each system.

This picture and more is on our site:

AWE Tuning 997TT Muffler

There is also a short video on the site, but we have a much longer one coming soon.

This is a great system for a daily driven car.

 

I must admit, it sounds dynamite!
I'd like to see a side by side independent comparo video on fabspeed vs awe vs cargrafic, +/- dynos.
Common Joe, Todd, CG lets do it!