I have a 92 Trans am and am just working to add performance parts to it. I was told that performance mufflers and exhaust system really dont matter in performance that much, it just makes a little bit of noise and hence giving a feel of performing better. Please let me know if spending about $200 on performance mufflers is worthit or not. I want a good quality performnace car, but am not into drag race.

 

Just a muffler wont do much good but I would really question whoever told you that the whole exhaust system didnt make much of a difference. An engine is an air pump. In order to be able to take more air in it has to be able to get rid of that air effeciently. I would get a complete 3" catback and headers if you could afford.

Ben

 

Whoever told you the exhaust doesn't matter really doesn't know what he/she is talking about. Yes, a muffler alone will not do a whole lot, but if you swapped out the muffler, main exhaust pipes and put a set of headers on it, it would be a massive gain. Especially over the factory kinked exhaust and the crappy exhaust manifolds. With headers and a good exhaust, i've heard of jumps as big as 40hp!

To add to what Momar said, the better and engine can exhale, the more it can inhale, meaning more air and more fuel... more power

 

exahust will give noticable gains..

 

if you give me a couple of weeks to get my car back up on the dyno, i shoudl be able to give you proven gains of 50HP.

i ran my car on a dyno 2 weeks ago with a clogged 2 1/4" cat, and a cheap midas muffler all 2 1/4". needless to say it SUCKED (well i did hit 240 tq before the lack of exaust flow caught up. with me) but due the exaust restrictions i was unable to muster even 100HP. and driving my car like that, it would only pull to about 2800RPM.

last week i put a Catco Hi-Flow 3" cat , and 3" flowmaster american thunder cat-back. i can tell you , it made a HUGE diffrence , i don't feel like i lost any torque at all, but i feel like i got back all the power i should have (read 150ish RWHP).