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Agreed upon best sounding setup for a 2 rotor 13b Rew?
Preface: I also own a mkiv and in the supra world it's a known fact that the OG rps manifold with an hks titanium exhaust is God tier on the 2jz when it comes to having the best sounding setup. There are a few other notables such as the sp F1 manifold and a few other exhaust setups such as tomei etc...now I should clarify, I'm referencing only the sound aspect of these components.
I've been on rx7club for quite a few years and I haven't nearly been active enough, but lately I've been working on my car and I've done a few searches but I haven't yet seen a definitive combo and or list of turbo/manifold and exhaust setups that brings out the best sound of the 13b. Is there such a known thing? Can someone fill me in?
Like for example it seems like for anyone wanting a decent comfortable ride set-up without breaking the bank, the tein flex z setup is the way to go.
L Looking forward to seeing and hearing people's opinions, thanks!
With only two exhaust ports, the manifold will not make a dramatic difference. Exhaust is all pressure wave tuning. If there is a specific issue you can get creative by using Helmholtz tubes, aka J pipes of different lengths/sizes along with quality mufflers.
Since you're local, feel free to stop by sometime, I ended up with wayyy too many exhaust's at the moment if you want to try out a setup on your FD.
With only two exhaust ports, the manifold will not make a dramatic difference. Exhaust is all pressure wave tuning. If there is a specific issue you can get creative by using Helmholtz tubes, aka J pipes of different lengths/sizes along with quality mufflers.
Since you're local, feel free to stop by sometime, I ended up with wayyy too many exhaust's at the moment if you want to try out a setup on your FD.
I'd love to swing by just to hang out! I'll dm you and I'd love to hear your feedback as well!
Dude let's do this! I can't believe there are local guys that I've never met in person. I should have my parts back next week, but you guys are also welcome to come to my place. Let me know
I don't live in Chi-town, so am not sure if I qualify to get involved in this conversation
On my single turbo '95 BB FD, I have a 3.5 inch DP to a 3 inch Banzai Magnaflow resonated MP to an RE-A Titanium Dolphin catback. After probably a dozen setups over the years dating back to like 1999 on all my FDs I've found I like this setup a lot. Oh, and the dual dumped wastegates mix things up a bit when the loud pedal is mashed to the floor
i don't think you're going to get much consensus there are a couple ways the Rotary sounds good, and many many more where it sounds bad....
ie its subjective
one of my favorites was actually the Knightsports 605 on an FC, it sounded like a race car, but was remarkably quiet
the RE Dolphin is good too, similar ball park
I think you will find we have people going after choices with different goals in mind. Your flex z example is for someone after low cost street comfort coil overs. The most agreed upon and regularly available exhausts in that category are the Racing Beat twin or Tanabe Medalion. These are 3”.
I’ve been through multiple Apexi, HKS and custom setups over the years. The fd has an RE Amemiya 90mm stainless dolphin tail with rolled tip full exhaust mated up to a 94mm Greddy T88 kit downpipe.
This exhaust is still obtainable new and has a combo of 3.5” size + good volume suppression in normal driving conditions. The style and tip angle flow nicely with the bumper. When the wastegate opens, all hell breaks loose from a dump pipe. A LOT of single turbo cars will have open dumps.
The OP's question is too subjective for any single answer. When I got my single turbo FD it had a 3" DP into a 3" straight thru mid pipe with no resonator and nothing to squelch the exhaust racket other than a large-ish oval Dynaflow(?) dual tip muffler at the end, and dual open dump 40mm waste gates. For me that sound got old REALLY FAST, and attracted too much negative attention. It was especially obnoxious whenever the waste gates cracked open, but even at idle the car sounded like ***. Highway speed droning sucked and it gave me a freaking headache after a few minutes driving.
I ended up having a fabricator recirculate my dual waste gates into the DP with some smooth flowing 2" piping, replaced the straight thru 3" mid pipe with a PFS 3" stainless steel resonated mid-pipe section (has a large oval Magnaflow resonator in it) and finally into a Tanabe Medallion cat-back system. Sounds about perfect to me now, nice deep tone at idle and cruise, no droning on the highway or any tinny raspy tones anywhere in the rev band. And when I romp on it it just gets a bit louder with that same nice deep tone, which just changes slightly when the waste gates open up into the down pipe.
Last edited by Pete_89T2; Oct 9, 2022 at 11:50 AM.
Really, the FD just sounds good. Most any exhaust does well. The question is mainly a) how loud is OK, and b) how stinky is OK?
There are only 2 exhausts that just sound like total crap on the FD, the Apexi N1 Dual and the Blitz Nur-Spec. They just sound terrible. Most anything else will sound good. Something cobbled up by a muffler shop will be a dice roll of course.
I’m going to go against the grain and say I’m not really loving my Tanabe. It just sounds like a wall of noise, a bit nasally and doesn’t sing through the revs. I hear in car videos of other exhausts, and they seem to display the rotary noise I’m used to from my old FB.
Why do so many people just take a video of the muffler? It always over blows the mic and doesn’t tell you how it will sound in car. Hopefully now that I’m in the Phoenix area I can meet other rotards and hear some alternative exhausts 😜
What a loaded question and I think it's been answered pretty well. Those of us that have had or been around rotaries for a long time have evolved in taste from my personal observations and experience at least. I used to love my GT Spec with straight downpipe and straight midpipe on my road FC. Now I wouldn't be able to drive it but I still love the sound. On a track it would be great but not for street driving in the least. You got the full Rotary sound with that setup along with bleeding ears but everybody loves fireballz right?
With my FD, I went from a large single with a straight through setup like my FC only an HKS hi power which sounded great (but again too loud for street driving) to a stock sequential setup with hks downpipe, resonated midpipe and racing beat twin tip. Sounded good but I came across an M2 catback and replaced the Racing Beat. For some reason the M2 sounded so much better than the Racing Beat, more of a deep "throaty" tone and less raspy. I have heard some of the new Racing beat twin tips and have been extremely disappointed as they have increased in "raspyness" and sound more "tinnie" as well. Don't know if they changed muffler manufacturers or what but I personally will not be buying one for my new FD.
I have gotten old and have graduated to wanting more comfort (including keeping the cat to get rid of the smell.)
Point of rant like many above said is "best" sounding is personal preference. I love the sound of a rotary straight pipe screaming down the track.......but i also love the mellow sound of a slightly louder than stock setup and listen to the turbo spool while holding a conversation. For something I'm going to be driving on the street, at my age I'm perfectly happy with quieter setups. Leaning towards Tanabe medalian or hks super turbo at the moment.
The question is mainly a) how loud is OK, and b) how stinky is OK?
Originally Posted by Brekyrself
With only two exhaust ports, the manifold will not make a dramatic difference. Exhaust is all pressure wave tuning. If there is a specific issue you can get creative by using Helmholtz tubes, aka J pipes of different lengths/sizes along with quality mufflers.
A good three points are made here, and I'll add to it:
The loud exhaust sounds excellent when it's not your car. Again it's a preference, but I couldn't handle being in a car on the highway with a constant hum since you're sitting at the same RPM. It gets old fast, or I'm just old, so a good muffler with a resonator or catalytic converter will help with the noise. This brings me to the second point from Dale, how stinky? Let us assume you don't want a smelly exhaust; your best option is a catalytic converter with an air pump hose. The air pump will accelerate the reaction in the catalytic converter and burn the hydrocarbons faster, which means less smell. Unfortunately, a rotary engine gets hotter than a traditional engine, adding more thermal stress to the cats than an average car. SakeBombGarage was working on a "twin cat" system, but it's 2 years behind. Fujita Engineering or mostly known as FEED, sells a similar product. I have a picture posted below and believe this is the best catalytic converter money can get; it uses two cats, hence the name, so the thermal load is split between them, and it will also help with sound. I tried translating what FEED wrote about the exhaust, which said something like having a "chamber effect" on sound waves. That being said, it will help with the "droning" effect on the highway since it looks like the sound waves would enter the tube, exit through the other side, and collide with each other, which would help cancel some soundwaves out, in theory.
Brekyrself made a point of having only 2 exhaust ports, and it does not help if you're still on the stock turbo using a downpipe that is a single tube. (Most downpipes are single tubes) Exhaust sound is all pressure wave tuning, like he said, and we can all agree that there isn't much going on in a single pipe. A twin pipe design like AutoExe, Mazdaspeed, or Knight Sports will help change the sound waves or make the FD sound different (hopefully sound good), again in theory.
Finally, I'll go over my ideal exhaust setup and will review it once it arrives because I'm currently looking for the best exhaust setup too, and trying something different. Most people go for the HKS or a SS downpipe, get a bonez high flow cat or the magaflow cat, and a racing beat cat back. (This is the most common setup in the US) It's no surprise I ordered a Knight Sports DP, Fujita Engineering's twin cat, and a FEED AS-V catback. There is only one video of the FEED AS-V catback, and it sounds like the racing beat exhaust but with a less raspy tone. I'm rolling the dice on this one, but I wanted something that looks similar to the racing beat exhaust. I hope my post helped because I'm also looking for the same answer as you.
I don’t know….the OP lives in the Chicago area. Fortunately I think there are a good number of FD owners there still running the twins and likely a good variety in exhaust systems. Just go listen to them and get an idea of what you like. Otherwise this is like asking what’s the best oil, best pizza or best beer.
Guys thanks so much for the responses! Looking back at my original post, when I made the reference to the RPS header on the Supra, I automatically assumed single turbo in my head but didn't write it down, so yes that definitely matters! There are definitely 2 camps, the single and twin setup guys. I guess the same would apply here as well. Not that it matters but my car is currently single'd with a recirculated single HKS wg.
As an added note, the reason for creating this thread was not to debate what the best setup is, best is subjective as stated above based on a few factors. I was more curious to see if there was an agreed upon consensus on what is/if there is something universally liked by rotary enthusiasts. If anything it was just to spark more of a discussion. Once my own car has its issues sorted out, i definitely would like to see and hear more FD's in person locally, will probably save that for next season though.
A good three points are made here, and I'll add to it:
The loud exhaust sounds excellent when it's not your car. Again it's a preference, but I couldn't handle being in a car on the highway with a constant hum since you're sitting at the same RPM. It gets old fast, or I'm just old, so a good muffler with a resonator or catalytic converter will help with the noise. This brings me to the second point from Dale, how stinky? Let us assume you don't want a smelly exhaust; your best option is a catalytic converter with an air pump hose. The air pump will accelerate the reaction in the catalytic converter and burn the hydrocarbons faster, which means less smell. Unfortunately, a rotary engine gets hotter than a traditional engine, adding more thermal stress to the cats than an average car. SakeBombGarage was working on a "twin cat" system, but it's 2 years behind. Fujita Engineering or mostly known as FEED, sells a similar product. I have a picture posted below and believe this is the best catalytic converter money can get; it uses two cats, hence the name, so the thermal load is split between them, and it will also help with sound. I tried translating what FEED wrote about the exhaust, which said something like having a "chamber effect" on sound waves. That being said, it will help with the "droning" effect on the highway since it looks like the sound waves would enter the tube, exit through the other side, and collide with each other, which would help cancel some soundwaves out, in theory.
Brekyrself made a point of having only 2 exhaust ports, and it does not help if you're still on the stock turbo using a downpipe that is a single tube. (Most downpipes are single tubes) Exhaust sound is all pressure wave tuning, like he said, and we can all agree that there isn't much going on in a single pipe. A twin pipe design like AutoExe, Mazdaspeed, or Knight Sports will help change the sound waves or make the FD sound different (hopefully sound good), again in theory.
Finally, I'll go over my ideal exhaust setup and will review it once it arrives because I'm currently looking for the best exhaust setup too, and trying something different. Most people go for the HKS or a SS downpipe, get a bonez high flow cat or the magaflow cat, and a racing beat cat back. (This is the most common setup in the US) It's no surprise I ordered a Knight Sports DP, Fujita Engineering's twin cat, and a FEED AS-V catback. There is only one video of the FEED AS-V catback, and it sounds like the racing beat exhaust but with a less raspy tone. I'm rolling the dice on this one, but I wanted something that looks similar to the racing beat exhaust. I hope my post helped because I'm also looking for the same answer as you.
Definitely keep us informed when you get all this installed. I'm looking to go a similar route. I had planned on getting the R-Magic ultra silent dual tip but they no longer make it and I haven't been able to find it used anywhere yet. Like I mentioned in my post above, I won't be getting Racing beat again since the newer stuff is raspy. I have heard the Tanabe and HKS Super Turbo in person and I don't mind them but the R-magic sounds a bit better IMO. I was also hoping to jump on the Sakebomb cat but that hasn't shown any movement for a while.
Guys thanks so much for the responses! Looking back at my original post, when I made the reference to the RPS header on the Supra, I automatically assumed single turbo in my head but didn't write it down, so yes that definitely matters! There are definitely 2 camps, the single and twin setup guys. I guess the same would apply here as well. Not that it matters but my car is currently single'd with a recirculated single HKS wg.
As an added note, the reason for creating this thread was not to debate what the best setup is, best is subjective as stated above based on a few factors. I was more curious to see if there was an agreed upon consensus on what is/if there is something universally liked by rotary enthusiasts. If anything it was just to spark more of a discussion. Once my own car has its issues sorted out, i definitely would like to see and hear more FD's in person locally, will probably save that for next season though.
Are you going Single or keeping stock twins because the sound volume is way different. The stock twin manifold cuts down on a lot of noise.
i don't think you're going to get much consensus there are a couple ways the Rotary sounds good, and many many more where it sounds bad....
ie its subjective
one of my favorites was actually the Knightsports 605 on an FC, it sounded like a race car, but was remarkably quiet
the RE Dolphin is good too, similar ball park
Apexi N1 Duals do NOT sound good. That is what I currently have. Love how they look, but they will be replaced for something quieter.
Word of caution: non sequential sounds like muted poop. I went from a Knightsport downpipe on twins with a stainless exhaust to a single with the same exhaust an 3" downpipe, and it sounds a million times better.
as has been previously stated this thread is similar to how do YOU like your pizza. (thin/sausage of course) sorry Brekyrself, not a fan of deep dish
the only reason i join the discussion is i really like my setup and it hasn't been mentioned. i like it a bit on reserved side around town so the nice guys in the uniforms are not at all interested in my car. OTOH, when my right foot on the floor i want as little restriction as possible and the wonderful sound of my motor is not throttled. i suspect that most of us, not all, like that kind of pizza.
i have run the same exhaust setup since 2003. single turbo, wastegate joins downpipe, 3 inch exhaust, a wonderful inexpensive (Borla P/N 40944) straight thru all SS 16 inch mid muffler and a Racing Beat single outlet catback. when choosing any muffler/catback make sure the packing is SS wool. fiberglass will melt. new for startup this month is a 4 inch DP as my G40-1150 is 4 inches.
as has been previously stated this thread is similar to how do YOU like your pizza. (thin/sausage of course) sorry Brekyrself, not a fan of deep dish
the only reason i join the discussion is i really like my setup and it hasn't been mentioned. i like it a bit on reserved side around town so the nice guys in the uniforms are not at all interested in my car. OTOH, when my right foot on the floor i want as little restriction as possible and the wonderful sound of my motor is not throttled. i suspect that most of us, not all, like that kind of pizza.
i have run the same exhaust setup since 2003. single turbo, wastegate joins downpipe, 3 inch exhaust, a wonderful inexpensive (Borla P/N 40944) straight thru all SS 16 inch mid muffler and a Racing Beat single outlet catback. when choosing any muffler/catback make sure the packing is SS wool. fiberglass will melt. new for startup this month is a 4 inch DP as my G40-1150 is 4 inches.
i did an FC with essentially that setup reversed with great results, RB downpipe/pre silencer, and the Borla as the rear. it sounds great. volume is perhaps a touch loud, but it sounds good so its ok.
Apexi N1 Duals do NOT sound good. That is what I currently have. Love how they look, but they will be replaced for something quieter.
+1
i had an N1 dual on an FC, and it looks great, but there was no difference between having a DP/converter and just open, and actually hooking the thing up.
