Keep Silent Please!!

Sometimes you tend to do something stupid even though you already knew the consequences. Take me for an instance, I simply hate an exhaust that can't shut up. I'm ok with bitch-sound-alike at high rpm, but it (the muffler) has to stop moaning at lower rpm. This article was written by me because I; with my stupidity bought this used 2.5" universal HKS muffler at (surprise surprise) Danau Kota late night bazaar. Ironically, there are plenty of mini-halfcut shop around there. They somehow manage to survive and their business seems keep on doing well. It's weird to see sport wheel or self-claimed rare spoiler at the late night market; a place usually people go to buy clothes, cheap g-strings or even fake Adidas shoes.

At first I was a bit hesitate to buy it since I hate loud exhaust but the price and the condition of this muffler was so reasonable and (regrettably) I bought it. I went straight away to the exhaust shop on the next day. The exhaust pipe beside the tank area was cut , put flanges, a decent length of pipe plus shitty welds, it is done. The moment I started the car, I immediately mumbled to myself; "I've told you dickhead, that thing is a moaning bitch!!". It was so loud even at idle. Clearly the Jasma tag on the muffler is some kind of a joke from HKS. Lesson no 1: Don't get tempted with prices so quickly.

The next stupid thing I've done; I manage to sell the HKS muffler for the same price when I first bought it and I've changed to cheap ala-5-Zigen GN+ clone muffler. This piece of crap is even louder than the HKS. The growling exhaust tone make a very iritatating sound vibration and my rear/boot panel keeps on rattling whenever the rev is above 3000rpm. Lesson number 2, don't wash your ass with shit. It still stinks..

Later I bought an used FGK chambered muffler. I've been using this kind of brand before so I'm very confident this time I'm doing the right thing. It was taken from Toyota's 4AGE (but no model was mentioned) with an inner diameter of 2.3". Justifiy from the look, it seems like the muffler is still quite new and I even can wipe off the black carbon stain inside the inner tip easily using tissue papers.

This muffler accompanied with a 2.5" bullet (been using for ard 2 years) is quiet enough and only starts bitching over 4000rpm; very fine to me. Imagine how much money and time I can save if I've think'ed wisely and bought this muffler at the first place instead of those 2 junks. 'Penny-wise and pounds-foolish' the Brits might say.

Get Exhaust'ed

I prefer a 'box' a.k.a 'hatchback style' muffler. They preserve the 'factory look' yet they do give some bling factory (provided if it was made from stainless metal) . After browsing a few autoparts forums for quite sometime; and occasionally went to junkyard, I saw one advertisement in zth regarding this FGK muffler. Being a JASMA cert-ed muffler, this is my insurance for me to keep enjoy listening to my radio or having a peaceful conversation inside the car rather than hearing nothing else but a deep and low howling exhaust tone all the time; commonly known for a canon type muffler. Met the seller at Puchong and that friendly chaps willing to part with this muffler for a very reasonable price. I was told the muffler was taken from an Integra DC2. He was using it on his 30 years old drift-becoming 2-door Toyota KE70; until the car was transplanted with 3T-GTE (turbocharged 1.8L DOHC 8-valve, twin spark plug). This muffler was paired with a 2.3" galvanized steel pipe with no resonator/midbox. To my suprise, it wasn't loud at all. Power delivery and throttle respond increased significantly (since I still on the factory 1.3L exhaust before this), and for the first time I can feel the 'pull' mainly after the cam switchover. Yey..