Exhaust Systems

There is also the:

• Edelbrock
• GReddy BL Exhaust
• Remus Exhaust
• Pacesetter (rumor to rust out pretty fast)

Written by Merlin Johnson

Borla [$418 list]

The second exhaust I tried was the Borla stainless muffler, it was damned expensive for just a muffler, the hangers and pipe bends were slightly off. So I had to pay someone else to rebend things around a bit to get everything to fit. Basically, I will never buy a pre-built Borla muffler again. I like the mufflers themselves, but not their quality control in application fabrication. I have a friend (James) with the Stillen and it sounds pretty good, I have the Borla, it is a bit louder at full throttle but VERY quiet at freeway (60-75mph) speeds with no "droning". The early versions of the Borla muffler had restrictors in them, you could look down the tip and see a small diameter "doughnut" welded at the base of the tip, this was supposed to keep noise in check.

In doing a few back to back comparisons with the stock muffler, the Borla and a generic turbo muffler, and with the car having headers; the Borla felt better than the stock muffler as far a top end, but was worse than the turbo muffler as far as bottom end throttle response and top end pull. The Borla was a quieter muffler over all than the turbo style muffler. I have learned later that the turbo style muffler is barely any better than the stock muffler but makes lots more annoying "drone" and noise, thus....is the borla that shitty? I think it was that restrictor, the muffler itself is of good design and their product would be good if you started with just the muffler and made the rest yourself.

The Borla is a full stainless steel muffler with a single "intercooled" tip, as far as performance, it is not worth the money, as far as durability, maybe.

HKS [$440 list]
HKS makes a system (cat back) makes 7hp and costs more than the Borla. It's quiet and high quality.

Stillen
The Stillen is an aluminized muffler with dual stainless steel tips. The Stillen muffler is approx. $225 (but can be had for VERY cheap, just grind the salesman). I have not heard of any premature rusting with this muffler has I have of HKS and Trust.

Stromung
Cool dual tips, fairly quiet, expensive, very deep, and it drones, basically that is all the input I have on it. Probably the equivalent to a Stillen or something.

Trust

This is the Trust exhaust system as it was sitting on Jim Wolf Technologie's floor before installation. I didn't take a picture of the box of gaskets and bolts that are also included.
This is the best exhaust I have run across for the SR20DE. It achieves low backpressure, doesn't drone, doesn't get blatty, fits right the first time, sounds good at WOT, but costs way too much and can rust easily. Trust supposedly knows about this rust problem, they basically say dot use the muffler where it can rust easily...duh. They make a stainless version, but it is even more expensive. Trust also has something for the G20, I am doubtful if there is something that fits on the NX2000 or 200SX SE-R. The Trust when run without a cat reduced backpressure by two more psi over a no cat, 2.25" mid pipe, 2.25" generic turbo muffler system, and was gobs quieter.