Picked up my new '08 Mercury Silver "F" last Saturday. Have been reading these forums, and got interested in the exhaust. Could not understand why Lexus put this two into one into two heavy exhaust on our cars. I looked at the SRT and the JoeZ exhaust, and decided to have my own fabricated. I liked the general tone of the stock exhaust, so I decided to keep the stock mufflers. I dumped the secondary cats and the factory resonator. I kept the head pipes and the mufflers. My muffler shop used a premade "X" and twin 18" glasspack resonators. He fabricated the rest of the exhaust with heavy gauge 2.5" tubing crush bent using 5" radius bends to maintain inner size. Mandrel bending wasn't an option. The 5" bends look OK in my opinion. I think he did a great :Djob:D
As far as sound, I don't have recording equipment so I cant record it. However, it's quieter than I expected. The idle sounds very much the same, but a little deeper, and both sides now sound different from each other. In the car, The idle is a bit deeper & a wee bit louder, but part throttle sounds about the same. I don't know if there's a difference in power, but I suspect there is, because the flow is so much better. There is absolutely no rasp. Again I think my fabricator did a fantastic job. I am happy.
Oh Cost - $450.00.
Lou