best exhaust system for my e36 m3 ?

[Jrrrrrrr]

There are a million opinions on this topic, so I'll throw mine in.

A used UUC RSC32 catback would be a great buy. I say that because I have one and its my opinion on this "best exhaust" thread.

The sound is indeed deep and throaty at low RPMs with no ricey rasp, and reasonably quiet at low RPMs in daily driving. The sound really opens up past 3500 RPMs on an S52B32. On throttle and off throttle at those lower RPMs is really pronounced in a great way. There is an obnoxious garble at low RPMs in engine braking situations that I could really live without, but some folk like that.

For hightway cruising below 80MPH (3200 RPMs) the exhaust is nice and quiet and dare I say, comfortable. Drone is not a concern. The sound of on throttle when highway cruising is addicting.

[gsilv]

im quite happy with my supersprint. quality and fit is A+, sound is tasteful at cruising but really nice when getting on it. although mine is prob quite a bit louder because of the track pipe and ive had it for many years. ive heard great reviews on stromung/eisenmann as well..

[Grey Phox]

http://store.activeautowerke.com/act...haust-p14.aspx

Because it's the one I have. Might be too loud for you though.

Word. Its a good loud, I love mine.

[JJCTHE1]

can you do me a favor and look into the outer most exhaust pipes on your e92 and tell me what you see?

Not sure what you mean?

I got lucky w my E36 Dinan exhaust, I bought it new in the box from a forum member for $650. I think they go for over a grand from dinan

[Tipsy]

here are 3 out of 4 exhaust set ups ive had on my car (3 difference recording devices):
1) turner stage 2, stock midpipes, borla cat back: 210whp, 201 wtq
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUXnTWLSa1E&feature=relmfu[/ame]

2)turner stage 2, raceland long tubes, dual 2.5 inch header back (borla dual 2.5 muffler, 2x ar25 resonators:


3) turner stage 2, raceland long tubes, dual 2.25 pipes ar25 resonators, welded to borla street muffler(stock bolt on 2inch pipes)
NWS language, and yes we sound like idiots: 240whp, 220wtq
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwTo94tsthA[/ame]

[Papy1]

I've got a UUC it's killer.

[Tipsy]

Not sure what you mean?

I got lucky w my E36 Dinan exhaust, I bought it new in the box from a forum member for $650. I think they go for over a grand from dinan

you have a dinan exhaust on your e92, correct? look at the far left and far right tail pipe, they are fake. they did this with the e46m3 also . we noticed this on a customer's car once. made me very sad

[kovrol]

Supersprint or Eisenmann.
I have the S52B32 with the Euro supersprint race system, sounds awesome

[JJCTHE1]

you have a dinan exhaust on your e92, correct? look at the far left and far right tail pipe, they are fake. they did this with the e46m3 also . we noticed this on a customer's car once. made me very sad

I do. Never noticed! It looks good, sounds good, feels good, it must be good!

[328e36]

stock 96+ m3 muffler, Borla and Dinan are my 3 favorite sounding

[mattsk8]

I have Stromung on my 95 M3 and love the WOT sound. It does have a bit of drone while just cruising; nothing obnoxious though. Definitely not ricey, very throaty and smooth.

[Bimmerman535i]

Two very different ways to go about this.

Pure race car? 3" single all the way back with a header biased for the kind of rpm range you plan on using.

Pure street car? Turner shorties, OBD2 midpipe, Stromung/UUC/Eisenmann/??? catback, depending on your sound preferences.

If your car is a mix of street and track....worry about other things like driver mod first.

[m3leistung]

I have had both a true dual exhaust and now a single exhaust, and here is my $0.02.

For most N/A e36's, exhaust is mostly for sound and weight savings. Exhausts don't make huge power gains on these cars N/A like the larger displacement vettes, camaros, etc. do.

Single 3" exhaust is what I chose for several reasons:

--Lighter than twin pipe exhausts (real reason for 3" exhaust)
--Smaller amount of surface area (so less friction losses for exhaust gases) - doesn't really matter too much on N/A cars anyway
--3" exhaust can still flow >600 whp on turbo e36's before becoming a real restriction (and 3" is easier to fit under car without it scraping everywhere vs. 3.5" or 4")
--Most race cars and forced induction cars run single exhaust for min. weight and max. power
--I plan on turbocharging my car in the future so I can just hook a downpipe up to my existing 3" pipe
--Single tip looks better (opinion)

The 2 basic 3" solutions are the:
AA race exhaust (from bimmerworld.com and other vendors) or
custom 3" exhaust (from any reputable performance-oriented exhaust shop)

OP, both of these options should be within your budget

I had longtube headers, custom midpipe with resonators, and UUC twin-silencer catback, and I now have longtube headers, custom y-pipe, and 3" mandrel-bent pipe with a magnaflow race cat and 2 magnaflow race mufflers.

Although my qualms with my dual exhaust mainly stem from the droning UUC catback I had (obviously not all dual setups drone), the 3" is still superior for weight, less frictional losses (butt dyno says 3" flows better in the top-end range; probably negligible N/A, but better for future F/I plans), better looks (opinion), and better sounding (no drone and less raspy, now sounds much more refined and unique and absolutely screams top-end; again opinion).

cliffs/tl,dr: 3" single setup is objectively better than a dual setup because the 3" is lighter and probably makes more power (esp. on F/I setups and top-end on N/A setups); sound wise: subjectively, everyone is different (but i love the sound of my custom 3"). OP, check out AA race exhaust or look into custom 3" exhaust.

[RRSperry]

There is no best. It is a purely subjective evaluation.

When I got an exhaust for my car there were only 2 or 3 choices. Dinan gutted stock exhaust, (yes, that's what they used to do), SuperSprint, and Billy Boat (so annoyingly loud it wasn't funny). I bought a very lightly used SuperSprint for $600 and never looked back.

Now everybody and their brother makes an exhaust. None of them make significant power.

[smason96]

I know this is an old thread but has anyone in the E36 community installed a Bimmerworld Cat-Back exhaust by Magnaflow on their E36 M3? I currently have Stromung on one car and UUC on the other. Stromung is too bassy/quiet for me so I might switch to Bimmerworld but was looking for some feedback first. Let me know, thanks!

[Kraftwerk]

I love my Supersprint, Made in Italy, I think. Not loud at all but if you get the revs up it's sounds great. Car has 140,000 miles and I am on my second one since new.
Beware : some aftermarket exhausts have lower performance, they might look better or sound cooler but Supersprint was one of the only one that offer's a performance gain: more Hp, for got how much exactly.

Running with stock headers for now, but I think that might be something to consider in the future - after-market headers.

[propcar]

I love my Supersprint, Made in Italy, I think. Not loud at all but if you get the revs up it's sounds great. Car has 140,000 miles and I am on my second one since new.
Beware : some aftermarket exhausts have lower performance, they might look better or sound cooler but Supersprint was one of the only one that offer's a performance gain: more Hp, for got how much exactly.

Running with stock headers for now, but I think that might be something to consider in the future - after-market headers.

Appropriate comment for the username.

[QtheGenius]

I love my Stromung, I'm surprised you think it's too quiet/bassy. I had a friend about a decade ago who upgraded to the Bimmerworld exhaust, but he did the full 3" setup, from headers all the way back. It was definitely a deeper tone, but I never heard it under WOT.

Is your goal to just be louder?

[dragoshaba]

Eisenmann Race was always my endgame. It was hell to get it here in canada, but it was worth it. Amazing sound, not obnoxious or too loud, looks amazing and you save weight.

[jamrobin]

Stromung FTW!
I agonized for a year and listened to dozens in person...
Stromung, especially after several hundred to a thousand kilometres to mellow is absolutely beautiful. Just the right amount of bark at heavy throttle and smoooooth but low at gentler throttle or steady state.
I have had mine for seven or eight years and just this past summer also put some shorty headers on it. I haven't regretted it for a nano-second.
(well I did have a couple of days with a blown out header to cat/downpipe gasket that made it sound like a clapped out vw bug but proper OEM gaskets fixed that and it wasn't the Stromung's fault LOL)

[jelliott4]

Well I bought a Scorpion cat-back from Turner about a year ago, and after it was back-ordered for seven (!) months and I was too lazy to install it for several more months (working from home really changes the priority associated with a deteriorating muffler on the daily driver...), until today. But it doesn't fit. Its pipes are like 63 mm and the OEM front exhaust section on the car is like 48 mm. The gaskets I bought (based on the illustrated parts breakdown on realoem.com) appear to match up with the aftermarket muffler, so I'm not sure what's going on here. (The deteriorating muffler I removed is a Dinan, for what that's worth.) Has anyone encountered this before? Is my '99 M3 somehow unique vs. earlier model years? Is it a USA vs. ROW thing that Turner has intercommunicated with Scorpion (UK)?

[pbonsalb]

63 mm would be the Euro size, but Euro rears don't match up to USA mids. It is not just the mm difference. The connection is also different, with staggered pipes, one that slip fits and one that butts, and a fiber ring gasket between the flanges.

I am not sure what you have if it matches up to the USA mid in all respects but the pipe diameter.

[RRSperry]

If I had to buy a new exhaust to replace my SuperSprint... Stromung. If I couldn't find another SuperSprint...

[jelliott4]

63 mm would be the Euro size, but Euro rears don't match up to USA mids. It is not just the mm difference. The connection is also different, with staggered pipes, one that slip fits and one that butts, and a fiber ring gasket between the flanges.

I am not sure what you have if it matches up to the USA mid in all respects but the pipe diameter.

Thank you! This is the sort of clarification I was looking for; it sounds like my mid section is every bit as stock as it appears, and Turner screwed up in importing a European aftermarket part without coordinating USA-spec differences! (Hopefully they'll eventually respond to my email and make this right.) My mid section definitely has the disparate connections on the two pipes, but you wouldn't know it if you just looked at the Dinan muffler that came off--diameters are subtly different to accommodate slip vs. butt, but the slight flaring of the end of the pipe is the same on each side, so when the two aftermarket mufflers are lying on the floor next to each other it looks like it's merely a difference in pipe diameter:
mufflers.jpg

What's interesting (by which I mean super confusing) is that if you trust realoem.com, it'll tell you that you need (what turn out to be) 63 mm gasket + sealing ring for the two different connections, even though the mid section it calls out for my car is the same one that it calls out for a 328--but on the 328 diagram it calls out different part numbers (presumably 48 mm) for the gasket + sealing/clamping ring! So if I understand correctly, realoem.com is correct for my mid section being common to a 328, but wrong with respect to the gasket + sealing/clamping ring being unique to the M3?

We'll see what Turner says about this 63 mm muffler they erroneously sold me but, depending how that plays out, should I be shopping for a Euro-spec mid section to potentially make use of this lovely new muffler? Would that bolt up to my stock exhaust manifold?

Thanks again!