This is going to be a bit drawn out, warning!
About 18 months ago I had a custom stainless exhaust made for the Sirion which is well made, but a little bit loud. The first iteration had no silencing whatsoever and while it sounded amazing, it was also audible from Spain so it went back and they grafted a silencer in, which did quieten it down. A bit. Since the car likes to rev, the new exhaust has been a bit of an issue, its fairly normal up to about 3000rpm, but then gets quite loud. I've fitted a bung to the tailpipe which helps quieten it down but seems to stifle the power a bit. The car has passed MOTs like this so its not horrific, but isn't quite how I want it.
I've pontificated on this for about a year when I really ought to have grabbed the bull by the horns ages ago. So I've gotten a grip and decided to DIYMFS.
I got the car up on some blocks so I can get underneath so I can see what I'm working with
The exhaust fabricators have saved me a world of pain by making the exhaust in three sections, flared and clamped together. The system is made from 2.25" stainless pipe and has a 9" long x 3" diameter silencer grafted in about level with the gearstick. I was able to undo the clamp visible in this pic, and the one further back, level with the fuel tank, and the pull the rearmost part of exhaust back and wiggle the centre bit out
TA-DAH!
I've purchased a much bigger silencer - 18" x 5" with flared, clamp-on ends, plus some clamps and assembly paste. This should be here by the weekend. I plan to measure it all about 800 times, then cut the existing pipe about 10" rearwards of the existing silencer. Then I can clamp the new, bigger silencer into the system - connecting the the front pipe at the front, and into the existing centre section about 4" forwards of the first 90 degree bend. In theory* the new silncer will just slip over the existing pipework and clamp on, meaning the exhaust will be composed of 4 sections rather than 3. Assuming I do it right, and only cut it once, if I make a total hash of it then I can just re-join the cut section with one of those pipe joiner things and pretend like it never happened.
I've had a really good look and there seem to be plenty of space in the transmission tunnel. The Sirions came with one body pressing for both the 2WD (like mine) and 4WD variants, so the transmission tunnel is pretty massive and empty on mine where the propshaft would go on the 4WD variants so I have a fairly good amount of space to play with.
So now we wait for the exhaust bits to arrive, then loosely fit them up to make sure it all fits as its supposed to, then measure a hundred times before cutting the pipe read to join to the bigger silencer. Hopefully with this fitted I can remove the rear bung and have a fruity, but not deafening exhaust!
