I am really considering buying the calmini cat back system, if it gives me a noticeable difference in power. IF anyone has it, do you feel it made a difference, even with the stock manifold? Thanks Andrew

Not to bag on the Calmini product, but we found it cheaper to find a local exhaust shop supply the materials and perform this work.

~Nate

My cousin was actually quoted far higher on her X90 so we ordered the calmini cat back for less than our local shops would do it. I work at a shop that installs Bolt on exhaust kits. Calmini was only $20 more (after shipping) than the cheapy stuff we can get.:-/ I think It would depend on where you live. I have never asked her if it gave her any more power but it does sound better.

Mike

I agree, even if you don't fab it up yourself it's cheaper.  Figure you can get a kick-ass muffler like a magnaflow or a dynomax striaght through for around 60 bucks if you don't go for stainless.  Since it's a pretty easy system in terms of bends to build, I bet you'd be looking at maybe 200 total, less if you just get a cheapie turbo muffler.  With the Calmini setup you're probably looking at an extra 20 bucks for shipping (roughly).  It's worth a look at least.

Then again it may just depend, I had a system put on for me on my Datsun by a hole in the wall type shop for about 120 bucks a few years ago.   If it ends up being more like it did for Mike you can always fall back to ordering the Calmini stuff worst case.

I had a guy in town do my exhaust and he  charged me $300(parts and labor)  to install a Magnaflo and a new cat w/ 2" pipeing from the header back. That $300 also included some welding I had him do while he had in the shop to fix my bumper bracket that broke, so with out that it prob been a little cheaper.


Jacob

Nice, maybe i should try that, or I will get a flowmaster. Its up in the air right now with all these ideas floating around.

I reccommend if you wheel a lot to stay away from the calmini exhaust. My second wheeling trip folded the tailpipe into the gas tank due to the fact it hangs way too low. The bends are factory locations and it just hangs down too low and gets hung up. I now run the calmini header with a universal cat and a dyno max ultra flow with custom bent pipes, nice to have access to a pipe bender. I like the setup now, sounds pretty good.

Ok, thanks for that info. That helps me a lot, cause I wheel alot with it bone stock. hehehe.

Nice, maybe i should try that, or I will get a flowmaster. Its up in the air right now with all these ideas floating around.

Stick with a Magnaflow or Dynomax Ultraflow.  They flow better anyway, but they sound a lot better on a 4 cyl.  Flowmasters sound pretty crappy on 4 cyl cars.

I heard a sound clip of projecttwin's tracker with a 60 series and it sounded really nice..........I don't know if there is a link to his site anywhere.

http://www.projecttwin.com/images/tracker/exhaustafter.mpg there listen to that. I think it sounds really nice.

SOUNDS GOOD IDLING....WONDER HOW SHE SOUNDS ON THE FREEWAY  

I got a shop to fab up my cat back. Oh that is right I don't have a cat. pulled the darn thing out hehe. What I did was take out the old stuff then got the shop to fab up the thing then I put it in the kick myself.

Total Cost:
2.25" pipe $60.00
Muffler $25.00
$85.00 beat that

Great Gains in Hp too!!! Sound cool!!

I got the Calmini cat-back and header about a month ago when I put in my lift.


It works pretty good though it was a pain in the ass to install.

They don't send you enough material with the kit because they recently changed the design and I think they are trying to sell of their stock before they implement the design change. (or something along those lines) :-/

So if you order it your gonna have to find a two foot piece of 2" exhaust pipe and bend it to fit between the Cat and the flange pipe that comes out of the muffler.

And the kit is no longer a full bolt on kit.  You gotta weld the collector to the cat, then you gotta weld the piece of pipe that they dont send you to the other side of the cat, and to the flange pipe that comes out of the muffler. (like I mentioned above)

Make sure you bend the pipe that runs from the cat to the flange pipe perfectly or else it tweaks everything out of line and it's a bitch to attach the pipe to the hangers. ( I had to do it twice before everything sat right)

If I were to do it again I would just order the header and have a local exhast shop do the rest for me with a flow master kit. Since I live in Canada it cost an arm and a leg to get that stuff shipped up here.

But don't get me wrong.  With all the install probs set aside, its a great system. Huge power differance!  

I reccommend if you wheel a lot to stay away from the calmini exhaust. My second wheeling trip folded the tailpipe into the gas tank due to the fact it hangs way too low. The bends are factory locations and it just hangs down too low and gets hung up. I now run the calmini header with a universal cat and a dyno max ultra flow with custom bent pipes, nice to have access to a pipe bender. I like the setup now, sounds pretty good.

My thoughts exactly.  
We have a 3 inch body lift and were able to fully customize where our exhaust ran while at the shop.

We replaced the cat too, because our cat had some 'damage' and was able to get nearly everything lifted up closer to the body from the downpipe to the tail pipe.

Now our exhaust has TONS of clearence.

~Nate