I want to upgrade the exhaust soon on my 02' manual trans. She is mostly stock except suspension. I was looking at cattman, megan, BRM and HKS. I am leaning towards stainless steel(I live in NYS) and 2.5". I will be getting CAI soon too. I want a deep purr/growl sound, not bees in a can and I want the best performance I can get. What do you guys recommend? Thanks

 

Take care of the precats, first.

You can't go wrong with 3" catback

 

I agree with taking care of the precats but I'm afraid the 3" is going to be a bit raspy in the higher rpm range. I would look on YouTube for different exhaust options and see which one you like the best, and trust me there are a lot of videos.

 

No, 3" is very smooth (actually too smooth to me). 2.5" is slightly raspy in the lower revs at WOT, iirc, but is great after that. This is based on my Cattmans with headers/TP.

 

The best bang for the buck is headers. They get rid of our horribly designed manifolds and the precats all at once. You'll have a good power increase even with the rest of the system stock.

 

3" has absolutely no rasp at all. It's buttery. A 2.5" on the other hand, would be raspy.

 

I will be getting full exhaust headers and all, just not sure which brand. Going with 2.5" bc I read 3" is pointless without other types of major upgrades which I'm not planning to do.

 

I want cattman all around but easier said than done since they don't make them anymore

 

I watched many videos but it's hard to tell from a video

 

Also won't be keeping stock due to rust and holes

 

Word.