so i finally took delivery of my gt3 about a month ago. i had the sharkwerks bypass put on the weekend i received the car. i was a little disappointed in the sound as was my friend who helped me install it. i was expecting something racier than what was produced. i'm used to some very raw cars (single turbo supra, gtr, straight piped m3, motorcycles, etc) so after about a month of ownership, i decided to switch over to europipe's track exhaust. this particular thread inspired me to do so.

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...st-review.html

i contacted stef at europipe and they got the exhaust out to me very quickly. i believe it was ordered on oct 27th and on my doorstep by oct 31st. talk about quick shipping from overseas. he was very quick and helpful throughout the process and i wouldn't hesitate to order from him again. so i finally got around to installing the exhaust. the whole process took me about 2.5 hours by myself. i've attached pictures below of the process. the first time i turned the car on, i nearly shat my pants. it was one of the greatest sounding things to come out of any car. almost reminded me a bit of VRalexander's cgt. the sound was so raw and powerful and had me smiling ear to ear. when i got around to my first test drive, i would just start giggling like a little kid in a candy store!!

Now here're my thoughts about the exhaust:
--very loud. not for the faint hearted. i've never heard a cup car in person but this is what i would envision it to sound like.
--price was very competitive.
--downshifts/throttle blips are pure win
--craftmanship is top notch
--fitment was perfect
--because the 3 mufflers are taken out, a good amount of weight is shaved off the rear. ~40lbs or so would be my guess?

i haven't had a chance to take the car for a long drive, but i'll report when i do. i'll be driving back and forth from nyc to maryland and will be able to provide much better input about cruising with this exhaust.

here're some pictures of the install. i'll give a quick guide from what i remember off the top of my head. sorry about the crappy quality. i was shooting from my camera phone.


tail lights out and getting ready for the bumper to come off. tail lights are held on by 2 torx screws for each light.


bumper off. i believe there are 4 torx screws on top, one on each side behind the wheel, two push pin torx screws on each side below the tail lights, and 8 more on the bottom of the bumper. make sure you disconnect the plug for your license plate lights.


heat shields off. there're two large bolts (16mm if i remember correctly) holding the crash bar in place. and then two more torx screws on either side where the center heat shield meets the side shields. for the sharkwerks bypass, there are two clamps holding the bypass to the body.

 

center and side heat shields are off now. each of the sides shields are connect by two nuts, two screws and another nut inside the wheel well.



a view of the right (passenger) side muffler



a view of the left (driver) side muffler



a picture of all the pieces off. the side mufflers are held on by three nuts that're located right next to the engine block. once those three nuts are removed, unbolt the vband with an allen key, take off the solenoid hose for the sport button, loosen the clamps on the bypass, and the mufflers should come right off. repeat for the other muffler.



a view with everything taken off. i should've tried starting up the car with no pipes from the cat back

 

Ah no worries! For sure our street version is meant to be for the street If you're used to raw, open etc.. Supras and what not this is probably more your thing. But as you say it's bloomin' loud and not for the feint hearted

Our track exhaust is way way louder but I'm getting old and conservative lol so it's too much for these ears and we include ear plugs as an option with ours...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSz_rJ1jnQ4

Be careful because when uncorked like that as you can see from the video you can hear it very well from 3 miles away The only other thing is a bit of low end tq loss and response with the big back pressure drop but that's only below 4.5K rpms which isn't important when at the track. Weight savings are nice tho!

 

driver's side cat with vband loosened.



passenger's side cat with vband loosened


new europipe exhaust ready to go on. comes in two pieces. just match flanges up with the cats and tighten vband around them. pretty straight forward. you should assemble the two pieces of the exhaust before attaching it to the cats.


driver side flange for exhaust


passenger side flange for exhaust


europipe installed!!!!



vbands tightened


screws to close off hoses and zip ties to tie them away from touching the exhaust.



DONE!!!


a picture of my rss tow hook. bryan hooked me up. quick shipping from him as well and got a tshirt with it! the hook feels very solid and very functional. i doubt this piece will be flapping back and forth from the wind

I'll keep posting my new mods. my next mod is getting my new set of hre's painted with a candy red lip and matt gray centers (inspired by vivid's car). also have a cargraphic gt3 rs wing that is going to be painted very soon and installed.

 

yea i wish i went with your track exhaust first. i asked some people and they said the europipe would be a little louder so hence the reason i went with it. i guess my definition of loud and other people's are not the same. i'm also a bit younger than most of the crowd here so hence the difference in tastes.

btw your bypass was great too. fitment was perfect and i loved your tips. i reused them on my new exhaust!!

 

Hah no worries on that! Being young and in a GT3 is certainly a nice combo I' guessing it may well be a bit louder than ours since we have some small race mufflers and a balance pipe (for back pressure). I was going to say.. glad you re-used the tips!

 

Need a video! I'm also sitting on the fence on this.

 

Did you keep the Sharkwerks bypass parts? If so, do you want to sell?
Thanks.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but the drop in TQ that Sharkwerks mentioned is really what put the Euro Pipe system on the Map. Apparently it is not affected by the lower rpm TQ drop b/c the EP system uses the smaller dia piping. Yet still makes HP gains up top as well Correct?

I was under the impression that the larger dia systems like the sharkwerks race system that utilize the OE Manifolds and Cats are plagued with the drop in TQ due to the loss of back pressure. Where as the Europipe unit does not have this issue.

Thoughts?

 

Not true. The EP Track pipe will lose some bottom end below the mid 3k rpm range when compared to stock but makes more power beyond to redline which is noticable. There have been dyno's posted that show this. The low end loss is not that big an issue since we are usually at the low range for a very short time. It's true the EP pipe diameter helps the overall result.

 

Thanks for the input, That being said which unit historically has more significant gains with the least amount of loss, the OE diameter EP system or the larger diameter Sharkwerk's race system?

 

I have not seen sufficient data to know the answer and not sure there is an appreciable diff. It would be interesting to see a back to back test. I can tell you that both are very loud on heavy load.

 

This track pipe doesn't lose any torque compared to an unplugged stock exhaust with its flaps in the open position.

 

so does the sport button still work?

 

No sir systems like this are loud loud loud and remove all the side mufflers