Putting a cutout after a factory cat and test will be pretty quiet. If you want loud the cutout needs to be off the down pipe before the cat. Once this is done the rear o2 sensor will need turned off so it don't trip a engine light when it's open. It will be loud, super loud. Now I also feel unless you have a big cam to back up the barl of the little v6 at idle it's too loud and doesn't fit the bill. This also goes for when driving, unless you have a blower with a tiny pulley screaming or a turbo spooling I feel a obnoxiously loud car is a bust. This is all just personal opinion though.

Before I would ever mount a cutout at the y pipe I would just hack off the mufflers and call it a day though, it won't me loud enough to bother you for daily driving im willing to bet.

 

Here is my setup, it's crazy loud, and shoots massive fireballs but I also have a huge turbo, 3.5" downpipe to a cutout and also open dumping 2 46mm wastegates lol

 

So I got a cutout from summit racing and found out there is no way I'm fitting it without loosing ground clearance. I instead had a shop chop out the res and weld some pipe in its place, and it sounds louder and meaner now, except for the infamous mid-RPM rasp which is pretty loud now. Does anyone have recommendations on putting in an aftermarket res or perhaps a glasspack?

 

Curious why you'd spend money on an aftermarket resonator or glasspack, just put your stock resonator back in. It's basically the same design as an aftermarket res or glass pack anyways.

I guess you could get a shorter one that doesn't work as well, but it seems like a bit of a waste of money.

 

Greg, those shots actually help me out significantly too. I've been thinking of running a cutout as well. Is your exhaust full custom? Looks like yours is right before the cat?

 

I like the loudness of the car without the res now, it was a bit too quiet imo with the res. Of course I liked how it didn't rasp as much when the res was in. I figure the oem resonator dampens the volume of the exhaust more than an aftermarket one will. Is that the case?

Also my (limited) understanding of resonators is that shorter ones are louder but are raspier than longer ones, is this true? If thats the case will I be able to find a middle ground or is it a choice between louder and more raspy or quieter and less raspy?

Also, guys that have cutouts in, how did you fit them? The summit racing one I bought is far too big to fit anywhere, are there smaller ones with more compact y pipes that will fit on the downpipe's bend?

 

You are right, a smaller or different designed aftermarket resonator could give a little less raspiness but would also give less volume, like somewhere between stock and no resonator. Just seems like a bit of a waste to go halfway back to stock from where you are now. Personally, if you were just wanting to change volume, I would've left the resonator and changed mufflers.

As for the y pipe, just find a decent exhaust shop and have them make something. A Y pipe is nothing special, it's just cutting a hole in one pipe and welding a second on at an angle (plus the flange of course). Rather than trying to force an aftermarket one to fit, just have them add the branch off the stock exhaust somewhere that way they can pick the pipe length and angle to best suit your application.

In the case of my monte, I don't have a Y pipe at all. I literally cut a hole in the bottom of the downpipe bend (TOG downpipe) and welded a flange to that.

Regardless you're going to probably lose some clearance regardless where you put it. As long as your car isn't slammed, it shouldn't be a big deal though. The only real concerns will be speed bumps and road debris, just get it tucked up as tight as they can and it shouldnt protrude much.
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I didn't really think removing the res would make it as raspy as it did, i mainly told them to do it after finding out that I couldn't fit the cutout anywhere so my next best option was remove the res to get more noise. I like the sound of the borlas, they just were a tad too quiet with the res in. I'm thinking about putting in a 12" cherry bomb glasspack, hopefully that won't make it too much quieter. I could do an 8" but I don't know if that will have much effect on the rasp.

As for the cutout, I would really like to do what zippy did with his, it doesn't look like he lost any clearance. Perhaps he can weigh in on what he did to get it in there with such tight spacing.

 

Couple things i wanna add in here, that reduce that raspy sound.. Things you might want to consider..

Replace the Y-pipe with a T-pipe..

Since you dont need to worry about flow that much, you can replace any bends in the exhaust pipe with crush bent piping.. Both of these help a TON to get rid of the raspy sound.. I did it from the downpipe, back.

I went with just one side crush and one side smooth on this particular piece.. It really does make a huge differenece..





Ignore the horrendous welds as I had to use flux-less wire in a flux-core wire machine.. I have also since change both mufflers to the same thing and evened them out but take a look..

That one pic looks like the tips are very uneven but theyre not.. Strange angle I guess..

 

The sole purpose of a resonator is to help eliminate rasp. If you don't like the rasp then weld back in the resonator and call the project done and forget about being louder unless you find a shop that's more knowledgeable on how to weld in a cutout. As already stated you need to weld a flange to the downpipe at the bend, no u iversal you gonna work.

I am also not sure what brand you bought from summit but I know qtp makes a wonderful product and also sell low profile ones