I certainly don't want the folks who are feeling bad about the pipe to feel worse; if you nice people like your car nearly as much as I like mine I know you must be punch-the-wall frustrated, and I feel your pain.
That said, here's a success story....
My pipe was professionally installed for a very reasonable $50. Whole process didn't take 70 minutes. I handed the keys over @ 08:10, hung around, walked out for coffee, and when I walked back @ 09:20, my 'Tour was sitting in the parking lot.
The arms of the Y went on seamlessly; my guy made a small adjustment (OK, he bent the existing pipe, not the Brullen pipe, and only just a hair) to line up at the back. No exhaust leaks, no muss or fuss.
Sound difference: Imperceptible (my installer mentioned that immediately). No rasp on warmup, no drone at street or freeway speeds. This is the only exhaust mod I've done; I'm still considering changing the resonator to a Magnaflow (installer insisted that I get an offset, not a straight-thru, and he's the boss.) The stock res looks to be a hair over 19".
Performance : Boy, howdy.
Definitely more oomph under 3.5K rpm, and lots more fun when floored in 3rd gear.
I hit one of my favorite on-ramps, wrapped it to 6K, and closed on merging traffic quicker than I expected. Very pleased.
I'm a "green" person (I recycle everything!); one of the reasons I like this car is its good performance while still getting good gas mileage (it's averaged a very decent 25 mpg).
I will be checking the next few tankfuls post-pipe installation to see what's what in that department.
Again, thanks to SVTCuervo for the work. Great mod.
Hoping it works our for the everyone else.
Thanks again for all suggestions-advice-data on pipe size, resonator-replacement models, etc.
I'll be checking the thread, hoping for more good news from the group.
