Who to get a freeflow exhaust from?

[TimBru14]

Hi all

I've been getting quotes from different exhaust places in Durban to have my car fitted with a freeflow exhaust + manifold. Powerflow is the most expensive so far (Can't seem to find the email correspondence I had with them but I remember them wanting something like R4000 before fitting a tailpipe) and Primaforce seems to be highly recommended (from the groups on Facebook and various people that I have asked) but I came across someone who works for an exhaust place called EDW. They gave me the cheapest quote vs Primaforce and Powerflow (R2650 for manifold, stainless steel exhaust with 2 boxes and a custom tailpipe) and the reviews from previous customers seem to be very good. Has anyone had good experiences with these guys? Do you guys know of any other exhaust places that I could contact who may be cheaper or have better reviews? Just don't want to throw a whole lot of money at a company that isn't going to do a good job.

Thanks in advance

 

[nseven]

I have to say in Durban the quality of our exhausts locally are not that great compared to overseas or even JHB standards.

I have used exhausts from all the places you mentioned plus more (Such as Viper at Steves Auto Clinic, and Piper Racing). At first i thought they were okay, but until i saw overseas standard exhausts from companies like Miltek, SuperSprint, Tubistyle, Borla it became obvious that the local systems are far off the mark in a number of areas.

1. Welds, some places in Durban do decent welds, but compared to the best ive seen from overseas and JHB (eg rogue performance)...its night and day.
2. Bends, getting precise bends seem to be tough for most Durban places, despite working on hundreds of Golf GTIs for example, most durban shops don't have templates or pre made templates.
3. Materials grade, many dont use the nice looking 304L grade stainless steel, also forget about titanium tips or any of that fancy stuff
4. No use of Race Catalytic convertors or good quality cat foolers.

Now for the big one...
Poor muffler designs, if you take a Cowley, or a EDW, Powerflow or all these generic mufflers and cut them open you will notice that they are empty...
Now you might say isnt that the point of "free flow". Well yes but thats why the exhaust will sound worse than an overseas one. Take a Borla and cut it open and you will see much more thought out chamber designs, as well as fibre glass or steel mesh in the chambers surrounding the mufflers perforated pipe.
This is a big deal in terms of acoustics and its why locally produced exhausts tend to sound farty compared to higher end stuff thats been engineered to a much higher standard and with help from the OEMs.

So to finally answer your question...my opinion theres not going to be much difference between most of these aftermarket systems from local shops. So it doesnt matter much if you go with Piper, or PrimaForce or whoever, all those places will be using the same generic mufflers and theres not going to be a massive difference.
Powerflow have their own muffler designs but last i looked they were nothing special but maybe thats changed. Main thing locally will be weld quality and steel grade.

Another place you can look at is maybe FlowTech Exhausts, i think they are in the Bluff.

Anyway id need to know more about your car to give you better advice.

 

[TimBru14]

[MENTION=276]nseven[/MENTION] Thanks for the advice. I had some suspicions about the quality of the stainless steel and even went so far as to ask about high flow catalytic converters but sadly no exhaust shop seems to know what these are or whether they even exist (even though I've seen them overseas). The car in question is a Nissan NP200 1.6i (the 8 valve one). I know that it isn't necessarily the most powerful engine but I kinda just want a better sound out of the back (the stock exhaust sounds pretty horrendous and the mufflers themselves are starting to show signs of rust damage). I'll take a look at FlowTech for another quote. Do you think it's worth getting a freeflow exhaust at all on this car?

 

[nseven]

At the end of the day for most people either you're buying an exhaust for performance or sound or a combination of both. So if its a better sound you want then theres really no reason why you shouldn't get it for your car if you arent happy with how it sounds.

So the main factors for you are cost and workmanship, since you dont want to get an exhaust that costs a large percentage of what you paid for the car, not matter what miracles the exhaust maker claims, it wont be worth it.

I think taking it to powerflow is excessive, yes they will use better quality steel and mufflers but honestly unless you plan to pass this car down to your children or take it to car shows you dont need the best quality polished steel or welds.

Next up, race cat, i doubt the 1.6i 8v in that car is sensitive to cats, and being a smaller displacement N/A engine id say a cat delete / catless system with a lambda fooler is what you'd need there.

Mufflers, this is going to be tough...my opinion no matter what you do to a inline 4 exhaust system, its never going to sound awesome. Trust me on this, i have a 2.3L EcoBoost Ford Mustang and ive heard it on R40K Rousch and Borla exhausts and it still sounds worse than my 5 cylinder T5 Volvo on a semi stock exhaust.
So any basic high flow muffler will do the job. The EDWs will be more than sufficient (I believe Piper Racing use EDW as well).

The headers is definitely worth it if youre using that NP200 to carry any load, combined with a cat delete, correctly done headers will give you a noticeable torque boost on that car and with it being a work horse vehicle that will pay off with better drive-ability. Problem is shops that can produce consistently good headers in Durban is tough. If the headers are too small, or large or have even tiny leaks or wrong length the car will LOSE power.

My advice, phone up Piper Racing, Flowtech and Primaforce and ask them if they have done headers on that engine before. Whoever has the most experience with it take it to them. If Powerflow have off the shelf headers for your car buy those but get the rest of the exhaust done at another place to reduce the overall cost.

 

[TimBru14]

I am currently using the car to carry and cart stuff so a torque boost would be amazing :encouragement:
Will phone around for some more quotes. Thanks a million