Because European exhaust gas is much more refined than American exhaust gas.

I've been on the fence about upgrading my exhaust for 6 months now, but without actually hearing someones car in real life, it's hard to get a feel for how loud each one will actually be.

Cut-outs are an interesting thought; but it might actually be a bit too loud with them open.

I wanted to be able to have a quiet car, yet retain performance in my other 'toy' car and bought a dual chamber muffler from Varex. I initially made my own with a combo of a stock muffler, 3" resonator, and a QTP exhaust cut-out, but Varex offered a cleaner look.

Mine is basically a 3" straight through muffler on one tip, then when the flapper is closed, it routes through more internal baffles to quiet it down.

 

That's actually pretty cool. I wonder how that would sound/ look on an V8 E60

What are the prices on them?

 

I bought mine back in 2009, but after currency conversion & freight it was less than $300.

Not sure about on a V8, but it worked just fine for my little 4-cyl:

 

Nice.....Mitsu GSX?

I wish I would of known about this muffler about 5 years ago.....I would of put one on my turbo Nissan. It's got a custom top-mount header with a MHI TD05H turbo and 3" exhaust from the turbo back with no resonator or cat, with a MagnaFlow Oval. Drones like crazy going down the fwy....lol

 

Funny you mention it. I'm going to have the following electric cutouts installed when they install my headers:

 

ooo, sweet. you MUST post up pics/ vids of it once installed. How soon?

 

Will do. Hopefully I can get everything done in the next month or so. All depends on when I can get the appointment set for the install and when the headers arrive. The headers should arrive any day now. There was a 6 week wait/build time for the headers and I ordered them at the end of November.

I'm sort of concerned about how the cutout might cause turbulance in the exhaust path when it's closed, and wonder if it will have a positive or negative performance impact when it is open (perhaps this varies on where the cutout is placed, I dunno). We will be doing dyno testing before/after the headers are installed, so I'll make sure we do pulls with the cutouts open as well. Mostly just installing the cut-outs for the sound, but I don't want to sacrafice too much performance.

 

Looking forward to seeing the set-up..especially the headers

 

Yup.

With the flapper closed, I'm lucky to get any boost at WOT, but at least it's quiet. I can actually have a conversation on the highway in it now!

Back when I had a TD05 Mitsu turbo on it, I considered that 'kind of quiet'...

 

Good turbo.....great match for my little 1.8L

It is currently right around 300whp @ 22psi. Not bad for a car that weighs just over 2500lbs...makes for a fun little car.