I’ve been on a mission for the last few years now to get the evo’s exhaust as quiet as possible while still being a free flowing 3″ exhaust. This has been an ongoing quest of mine pretty much since I’ve had the previous black Evo in 2011, 2012. I’ve never been a fan of loud, obnoxious exhausts, and starting with when I first got the white Evo, I got a Buschur SCCA legal JDM exhaust (https://qlmotorsport.com/2013/03/10/jdm-rear-bumper-taillights-and-exhaust/) that had a decent sized magnaflow on it, with a great 4″ polished tip. This was in addition to a 200 cell mil.spec cat. A couple years after that, I upgraded to a larger magnaflow can, which didn’t help much. Shortly after that, I upgraded again to a 5×8 magnaflow (12219), which I have been running since. More recently, I cut out a part of the exhaust to add a resonator, which I then swapped for a secondary muffler.

Basically, my setup as it stands today is the 2 cell cat, a Magnaflow 14419 muffler, and then a Magnaflow 12219 muffler – essentially a dual muffler setup. I recently renewed my interest in making this setup a little quieter, particularly with the talks of how the laws in Cali have changed. The RRE Stealth is a popular option there, but after talking to RRE and finding they are up to their necks in production of these exhausts now, they gave me a few tips on how to essentially build one myself. The RRE exhaust is basically a dual resonator setup followed by a Magnaflow 12259. The 12259 is the same 5×8 oval as my current exhaust, except it is 4″ bigger (good) and offset (good). This will help offset not running a dual muffler setup.

Even with all that, I wasn’t sure if it would be as quiet as I wanted or even significantly quieter than my current dual muffler setup. After doing a little more digging, I decided to go even bigger with a Magnaflow 14589. This is a monstrous, 26lb 5x11x22 (8″ longer than current, 4″ longer than the 12259) offset 3″ exhaust. Unfortunately, it was determined by my local shop that this would not be feasible to run.

Thus, I’ve finally settled on a Magnaflow 12259. This is the same 5x8x14 center/offset that the RRE stealth uses. I am also going to keep the mid muffler, as well as run the ultraquiet resonator up front, and a mid resonator in between. This is the Vibrant 1142 Ultra Quiet resonator to help muffle & reduce drone, with an additional Vibrant 1795 (3″ straight through, 4″ body, 18″ long) that I had from a previous setup.

Old setup: hot idle, ~3ft from exhaust pointing straight at it – 80db

Final setup:

The final setup was completed on 4/16. It consists of the Vibrant bottle style resonator, followed by Vibrant’s Ultra Quiet Resonator, the mid muffler I already had in place, and the old muffler swapped out for the 12259.

Bottle style resonator (Vibrant 1795), which follows the 200 cel cat:

The Vibrant Ultra Quiet Resonator (1142), followed by the Magnaflow 14419 bottle muffler:

Full pre-axle setup on the car, with the turn, which later had a flange added for the axleback:

Final exhaust, with tip. The magnaflow was angled upwards for fitment, and the tip faces a little lower than before.

Overall, the exhaust is quieter and smoother than before. I haven’t taken the decibel reading yet, but overall the exhaust is way quieter. It’s no longer the loudest part of the car, I think the engine itself and the tire & wind noise are now louder than the exhaust itself.