The previous owner of my 10AE had a Midas muffler job done from the cat back, and they used what I swear are big, round truck mufflers and misaligned chrome tips. It's the only time he cheaped out on upkeep (the rest was all dealer- I have the r.o.'s), and it looks horrible- but the worst part is the sound. It's entirely too quiet and the noise that does manage to escape sounds like a toddler blowing through a straw. This exhaust is driving me nuts.

I intend to do more down the road (S-AFC, FCD, and so forth) but my question is: For the time being, while I'm spending most of my money on getting the car back to a solid, stock baseline, can I run just a 3" catback and not have to worry about a bunch of boost creep necessitating the fuel upgrades? The car has 86,xxx miles and good compression in both rotors (front slightly lower). Cats are original as far as I am aware. I'm not looking for massive horsepower gains- just something that sounds more like a proper performance car.

 

just Catback should be fine. Its replacing the cats with downpipes midpipes and straight pipes that causes heavy boost creep and such. You're still running the stock ECU with no FCD so the ECU should acknowledge the extra air running through the engine. After your catback upgrade I would start upgrading the fuel system to withstand the amount of HP you plan on ending up with for your car. Good luck

 

Well, I only did a nice catback along with a K&N cone filter, and right now my '92 TII registers almost 8,3psi and puts down close to 190RWHP. FCD is not hooked up, and no fuel cut is going on, so you should be quite happy with just a catback.

Doing any DP/MP or TID is going to get you into trouble though....

 

I'm dynoing 225ft bhp/flywheel ft-lbs torque with just catback, downpipe, and performance main cat.

Exhaust is fine, but if your thinking exhaust and intake mods you'd better get a decent pop off valve and gagues on the car first.

 

I rather thought I'd be OK, but it never hurts to make sure. One could easily come away from this forum with the impression that so much as opening the gas filler door the wrong way on a TII will result in the motor ejecting its apex seals or expiring in some other conflagratory manner, so I figured it was better to ask a slightly silly question than to empy my wallet faster than I can fill it. The cat-back will be the only (engine) mod until the cooling, engine management, and fuel systems are brought up to "massive overkill" spec- and I won't own a turbo car without proper boost, EGT, and oil temperature instruments.

Thanks for your input, guys.