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That's the resonator I removed a couple weeks ago. Now gonna remove mufflers and add in this muffler where the resonator used to be. Should be a bit quieter than one I heard online which had a nice tone but seemed loud.
Here are some pics of the interior of the factory resonator and the MagnaFlow muffler that be installed in its place.
The MagnaFlow is a "true-er" x-pipe and is larger so it has more space for sound affecting design.
I want to stay true to my heritage. My TL is what brought me to this site and what inspired me to be so active in modding. The Benz still hasn't earned that privilege.
Modification done. There's good news and bad news.
Good news. ......it has a very deep, quality tone and does not sound too loud near the car.
Bad news. .......sounds too loud for my taste inside the car. Love the sound but the volume is still too much for my taste for this car.
In the end I'm going to have to put it back to normal because I'm not interested in continuing to modify it until I reach my perfect tone. Maybe back in the day I would have but not now. Also With 2 mufflers it's hard to make small incremental tweaks to the sound which makes it harder to reach the perfect sound. Gotta go back to silence on Saturday (Ugh!).
I would have to put 2 in there (where the cans were) and it would probably go back to near silent. I could put 2 less efficient ones in like the small MagnaFlow ones so the sound isn't incredibly reduced but again I just don't have it in me anymore to keep spending time and money without knowing for sure if it will meet my expectation. My adventurous modding spirit seems to have left with the TL. SMH.
Can I ask a favor then?
Wait it out...you JUST had it done, a lot of times it'll quiet down as the carbon lines the inside.
The money is already spent, the modding spirit is still just as strong...if you would cut/weld yourself you'd keep trying. Don't let the frustration get the best of you.
I appreciate the suggestion man. I considered that but the volume inside is quite a bit louder than what i can tolerate. In my past experience the volume reduction due to "settling in" has only been a small reduction in sound. I just don't think it will tame it enough.
Actually this might be a turning point. I did say to myself when i bought the car that i didn't want to mod it too much and this might be a fork in the road. To fix this it will mostly likely take a couple purchases and a couple visits to the muffler shop. THis is exactly what i said i wouldn't get into again. I would like to get back into modding my house (not my car). I used to do plenty of cool home projects and for the past years i got so entertained with car projects that i've abandoned the cool home mods. I think this is the moment for me to flip the switch and go back to that.
LOL...it doesn't have to be so cut and dry though, they don't have to be mutually exclusive. One weekend, do a nice cool house mod, the following one mess with the car.
I just don't want you to be brash and throw away all the money you already spent because you're frustrated. Anyway, nobody knows your life better than you...
Do you think you're close to the sound you want? Is the depth and tone of it right? Maybe go to the muffler shop and ask the professionals what THEY think you can do/add/take off that way if it doesn't work, they'll likely work on getting it fixed without charging every single man hour.
The tone is nice (very deep, no rasp, no rattle) but the volume is pretty high....might even be a bit louder than my TL (at least at low RPM). Problem is volume is pretty high at low RPMs. Since i drive this car slow it could be tolerable if the volume would only kick in at high RPM (TL exhaust was kinda like this) but this reaches its peak volume at only 2,000 RPMs. So slow driving wont keep me in the nice sound range.
Damn now I'm confused again. Jeremy words motivated me to evaluate it again. The tone is really nice & deep. Just need to get the volume down. The reduction in volume needed is more than the reduction you get from it settling in but less than the reduction you would get from 2 Vibrant quiet resonators (one would probably be perfect). Help me out with some suggestions my AZine brothers....I would like to salvage this mod of possible.
Honestly Marco, the only reason I suggested that is because you seemed disappointed and ready to throw your hands in the air. You obviously wanted a more aggressive sound and it seems like you are close...so keep at it.
If you were having a theoretical conversation about it before-hand, fuck it, leave it stock. But you can't walk out of open heart surgery with the patient on the table! Money is already spent, let's figure it out!
Hmmm...have you considered header wrap maybe? Maybe it'll drop the resonance down a bit or create a little bit of a buffer to mute it? I usually wrap my exhausts...
Do you have a photo of how the car looks now under there?
What is too loud for you? The high pitch, or the drone when you're going 80 mph?
Wassap dudes. Sorry i've been MIA for a while, been traveling like a mutha... Anyways for the moment i put the mufflers back in and kept the magnaflow muffler in as well. I'm going to research a bit more because i believe some Mercedes forum guys recently tried some things so i'm get some feedback from them before i decide the next attempt. I did put the mufflers back in because it was not enjoyable as it was. Lets see how it goes. THanks for the info either way Jeremy.
I do think 2 vibrant ultra quiet resonators will lower the sound back to almost (if not totally) silent. When i just installed one in my supercharged TL with no-precats or 3rd cat it reduced the volume incredibly. 2 of these should be super duper quiet.
09-30-2015, 10:57 PM
