jwgroovin

I've been very pleased with the sound my Mac axlebacks and Bassani catted xpipe provide for warm weather tooling around. They're loud, aggressive, and scream at WOT. With my window down and the radio OFF, I love just prowling around making the motor do its thing.

Problem is, any lengthy driving, especially with the windows up, got on my nerves as the dreaded 1800-2000rpm drone just about rattled my teeth loose whenever cruising speed in 5th got under load at that rpm range. This has been reported over and over across forums, and various combos of midpipe and muffler have been purported to increase or reduce the drone. My combo has always been reported to have great sound but intrusive drone at 2000rpm.

Anyhow, one writer on a forum with the same midpipe and muffler as me mentioned that his drone became manageable after getting JBA headers. I thought that was a bit much money for sound improvement, as the performance gains haven't exactly screamed bang for the buck in the magazines. But the other week, my son and I installed BBK shorties on his '86 Mustang GT. He has an xpipe and Flowmasters, which sounded great, but the BBK mufflers deepened the tone, clearly added some low and midrange punch, and really improved sound at WOT. I figured what the heck and ordered the BBK shorties for the 05-06 Mustang. They just got installed.

The first impression is that any hint of raspiness is about eliminated, with a healthy idle. Pushing on the gas elicits a nice growl, but it's not as manic or loud--the sound IN THE CABIN is very much reduced!! It's weird, and I got really bummed out that my signature exhaust sound had got tempered a bit. Curious how it sounded outside the car, I had my son get in the drivers seat and I watched him go about 100 yards up the street, and then do the same thing going the other way. Not WOT but just a bit of gas for fun. Ah-ha! Big difference. Outside the car the sound is awesome, and improved, and still very much as loud. Somehow the headers have removed the irritating frequencies and even reduced the drone to very manageable levels, and it doesn't translate into the cabin.

Now, I have no way to prove it unless dynoed, but I think mid-range punch is way up. Third and forth feel "stronger" and have more pull.

I'm detailing the car today as there will be a large cruise-in in our area tomorrow if the weather holds, and if it does, I'll take some film/audio to have you compare with earlier video of just the xpipe and Mac axleback alone. I'm pretty satisfied, and heck, it will add some spice to our car shows when the hood is up.

Thought I'd pass on the info, as few S197 drivers seem to be getting the shorties nowadays...

John

y22kc

Nice write up, I've actually been considering shorties for a while. I was hoping Bassani would release their mid-length headers by now that would bolt up to the x-pipe, but I'm getting impatient. The JBAs are a little pricey, but the BBKs are not bad at all. Look forward to the audio

Mydnyghte

I had the same setup, MACs and Bassani X for awhile, and loved it. I too noticed the same alteration in tone when I installed my Hooker long tubes. It is much deeper, but sadly not as loud. Even with the cats removed, it was not as loud as it was when the stock manifolds were in.

jwgroovin

Well, that saves me some trouble. I was contemplating removing the cats and seeing if how that sounded...

Mydnyghte

Definitely try it! I had ran it like that with the stock manifolds, and MAN it sounded mean The downfall however, it was exceedingly raspy sounding under acceleration. So with this combo I had opposite ends of the spectrum; freaking wicked awesome sound, horrible horrible raspiness.... But like you said, most of that was eliminated with the new headers, and running catless is the way it was before I decided to try and find some louder mufflers. With your shorties, you may still have a more aggressive sound than I did with my long tubes.

jwgroovin

The sound is very aggressive heard from the outside, but inside the car it's definately muted now. And frankly, the last traces of "raspy" are now gone. My son and I took turns driving earlier today, and we each had our heads out the passenger window listening to the sound. At 65mph and dropping into 3rd and flooring it sounds unbelievable. It just howls.

If the rain holds off tomorrow I'll get that video done and a link posted.

John

jwgroovin

I've a got a quick video/audio of the car running around in front of the house. No loud open throttle, but if you set your computer system's equalizer to show off the lows, the sound comes through pretty good even at fairly low speeds, and you can hear the deeper tones not heard in the other two. Note this was with a digital still camera with video function, and it picks up EVERYTHING--wind, birds, and mumbling. It also seems to emphasize the highs, but hopefully this gives some perspective. I'm very pleased with the overall sound.

http://www.ballisticsoftware.com/images/macaxleback.mov
http://www.ballisticsoftware.com/images/Bassanicatxpipe+macsaxleback.mov
http://www.ballisticsoftware.com/images/BBKshorties+Bassanicatxpipe+macaxleback.mov

John

Mydnyghte

That sounds familiar!

Now you need to at least try it without the cats

Good looking videos too!

jwgroovin

I had two vids of my son as well, but all you could hear was me screaming at him to SLOW DOWN...

John