I have a 98 maxima auto. since i bought my car, i've been styling and tuning my car for a more luxury-slight performance setup (basically stock w/ minor changes). one of the performance mods i tried were many intake setups from stock - K&N panel - mid pipe & panel - midpipe & K&N cone. The midpipe w/ K&N cone was way to loud for my tastes, and i have settled for k&n cone w/ stock resonator, though even this is a too unrefined, raw sound for me when the tranny downshifts for acceleration.

I want to mod some part of my exhaust, but want the a quiet and refined exhaust note. in other words, stock setup is too quiet, too mute, and i want to gain some performance even if its minimal, but i want the mods to make the car sound refined. and by this i don't mean that i want it to sound completely quiet at cruising speeds and then gets really loud under full throttle like my intake setup sounds (i'm probably even going to switch back to k&n panel w/ midpipe because of this). i want to try to have small amount of baseline sound at cruising speed and a minor increase when downshifting/WOT. is this possible at all? i know muffler increases the sound the most so i was going to skip that, unless there is a muffler that is only slightly louder than stock. i was thinking y-pipe / b-bipe, which ever sounds less raw. you guys have more experience with the sounds qualities that these put out, i have none except for experience w/ intake sound. out of these three mods, which would make the least increase in noise and have the sound qualities i'm looking for? performance is minor (ex. y-pipe vs. b-pipe hp is less important to me than sound quality). thanks, i appreciate your help!

 

bump. ok i realize this post may be a little too long for people to pay attention long enough to read. let me rephrase: for those of you who have done exhaust modifications on their maxima, how does the sound quality vary from y-pipe to b-pipe to muffler? i know that on any car, a muffler alone can give a nice sounding deep tone (given that it is a quality muffler that doesn't sound farty or droning). so how does a b-pipe mod alone (no other exhaust mods) sound? and how about a y-pipe alone? do the y or b-pipe alone just increase the noise level a little, or do they give a deeper tone like a muffler would? thanks again.

 

To add a B-pipe and not add a Y-pipe makes absolutely no sense. I am not into noise. I have a K&N panel air filter and a Budget Y-pipe, both added recently. I am quite pleased with the sound. Absolutely no difference at idle or cruising, just a slight growl at WOT. I have been thinking about the B-pipe, but it costs slightly more than the Y-pipe and only adds say 5 hp. Would rather spend the money on an RSB and clear corners as I'm new to the modding game.

Buy a Budget Y-pipe. Forget about a muffler if yours is fine.

 

i know exactly what you are talking about, but even with y-pipe, b-pipe, or muffler alone, you will get the uneven overtone that you disliked. my suggestion to you is to reinstall your stock intake setup, but take out the bottom half of the air box ( that leaves the rectangular air filter hanging in the top portion in the air box, you can secure the air filter with some flex-hook ropes) this setup with stock exhaust yields you with quiet growl thru-out the powerband. i used to do that , but i like noise, too. so i went on and did the cold air intake. it's alot more throaty than the stock setup. i love it!!!

 

Thanks guys, your replies were very helpful. rmurdoch, with your y-pipe and no other exhaust mods, what does it sound like at WOT? would you say it's louder than your intake at WOT? is it deep/throaty sounding at all, or a mechanical sound? my k&n cone filter makes WOT sound machine-like, prob because the intake opening (the k&n filter) is closer to the engine itself than the original long tubing of the stock intake - a sound i'm not too fond of.