hey all, been lookin into puttin exhaust on my 05, its an ss supercharged, got a high flow intake so i got it comin in but not goin out. im lookin for somethin fairly cheap, not nessecerilly loud, but a decent tone, but i dont want it to sound like the v6 mustangs and camaros that drive by and just seem to put you in a bad mood.. but most important of all performance. kinda tryin to stay away from bolt on kits just due to price. right now just have the stock setup, 2 manifolds goin into 1 cat, resinator, and back into 2 mufflers/tail pipes. any advice, sound clips of what you guys are running would be much appreciated thanks!

 

Man, if you ever find what you're looking for, let me know cause thats what Ive been wanting to get forever... Cheap, best sounding V6, and great performance. JK you cant have all three, and you wont get the greatest sound out of these V6's in the montes. Ive heard the SC ones have the most trouble getting a good sound out of them. Good luck.

 

ive heard some 3800's sound pretty good with just open exhaust and high flow cats but the few ive known it ruined their o2's plus not sure if i wanna go that route

 

Mine sounds like an airplane. It makes me mad, but I wanted it to be fast...

 

What is fairly cheap? If you're thinking about sticking some $50 aluminized steel muffler or a $20 painted mild steel glasspack on there; I wouldn't bother, especially if you live in an area that uses salt in the winter. It'll rust at the welds, and eventually rot the muffler out. Been there, done that a few times- even had chrome mild steel exhaust tips rust out from it too. If you're going to upgrade exhaust- I'd definitely get stainless.

Even the lower grades of stainless will last as long as the stock exhaust- so you won't have to worry about it rusting out.

That said, its hard from any of us to say what kind of muffler would be perfect for you- your best bet is to go on youtube, and search all 3800 vehicles (they all sound the same)- grand prix's, impala's, montes, etc- and note the ones you like the sound of (they usually list their exhaust setup).


Won't sound anything like the mustang, although pretty similar to the V6 camaros- you've got virtually the same engine- so any non-true dual exhaust V6 camaro is going to sound pretty much the same as your car.

Forget performance, buy your exhaust based on what sounds good. You're not going to see hardly any performance gain by changing stuff in the catback- the L67 has much worse restrictions (downpipe and front manifold) in the exhaust stream for the mufflers and such to make hardly any difference. IMO there is no sense in buying an exhaust that sounds like crap for the extra .05 hp.

Link to my sound clip is in my sig- I have the same engine; but you can't really compare exhaust notes because of the headers and cam- they change the sound a good bit from stock.

Basically, I have straight pipe from the headers back (no cat) to a single magnaflow muffler. Its very deep, pretty quiet (the quietest muffler they had at the shop- we tried sticking on like 4 or 5), and sounds nice and rumbly at idle. The problem is off idle- just above idle (say 1500-2500) the exhaust gets quieter and less bassy- and they everything above that is nasty rasp- a common problem with the 3800's.

Has nothing to do with the SC- all 3800's sound the same (within the same car- obviously exhaust is different between say the grand prix and impala); they run the same heads, same exhaust manifolds, and same catback.

He said not necessarily loud- and IMO just hacking off the mufflers and resonator is going to make it as loud and raspy as you get on a 3800.

You know you don't have to have exhaust to go fast? IIRC there have been multiple grand prix's running high 12's in the 1/4 mile on stock catbacks.

 

hey bumpin 96 thanks for the advice, so did you just run your 02 into your headers? and did you run the stock o2?

 

I too have been looking for an exhaust for my S/C 3800.... not sure which way to go... I initially wanted to go with SLP exhaust and headers, but after hearing ZZP state that the headers are NOT the best fit and a sound clip of the SLP exhaust was quite tame, I'm back to the drawing board. I'll keep an eye on this post... If anyone has something upgraded, i'd like to see/hear it. I've contemplated cutting off the mufflers and just going straight pipe, but i'm not sure about how to go about that without screwing up the sensors...

 

My headers have a bung down by the rear collector for the stock front O2 to screw into. I don't run a rear O2 since I have no cat- however, I did have an additional bung welded in just a bit below the stock O2 for my wideband sensor.

IMO, I wouldn't listen 100% to a vendor who makes headers bash other header designs. Obviously they just want to sell more of their headers and catbacks.

I really think the SLP's are decent headers- probably why so many places have copied their design. However, nowadays its cheaper to buy one of the knockoffs (like the SSAC's or XS power- basically the same design as the SLP's for about $300- still stainless too).

 

I personally like the sound of Magnaflows on V6's more than anything. But like others said, watch youtube videos of different exhaust setups and go from there.

 

I just heard a GTP yesterday with cherrybombs and it sounded BADASS!! It was the box shaped mufflers (whatever those ones are called) but it sounded awesome!! Try to see if you can find a vid of that. And just so you know, there are alot of cars with the L67 and you wont get too much of a difference in sound than anything else you hear with the L67.