Sound: Loud. Drone is not bad at all below ~3k rpm, however my commute to work is 30 mins on a highway with a 75mph and 85mph traffic and is full of hills. This leads to the car sitting at 3.2-3.5k and revving frequently to get up and down hills. I am going to try to adjust the exhaust a bit and see I can't get it to quiet down but I'm thinking about selling the MBRP to someone wanting a loud car and going with the Cobb catback. However, the noise it makes it great. The turbo whistle is very pronounced outside the car but not in the car. I really enjoy it when I'm driving around town but the constant drone on the highway at higher RPM is difficult for me.
Install: An absolute nightmare. I had the top bolt closest to the front of the car be cross threaded from the factory. I got it about 1/2 way out before I slipped off using a breaker car and completely rounded the bolt. I used heat, penetrating oil and a bolt extractor socket. I turned it about another half turn before it stripped going back the other way. I had work the next day and it was 10 degrees out. I rented a car for a week and started on it again Sunday. I ended up cutting off part of the bolt, leaving the cross threaded stud in the turbo housing and put on a nut that fit. It works just like the stud given by ATP but is kind of rigged. I plan to go bigger turbo in the next few months anyway so I'm not worried about it. Next complaint? The heat shield on the manifold. Not only is it hell to get the bolts out of but once you do it's damn near impossible to just remove from the engine bay. Other than those two issues the downpipe isn't bad. The catback was cake.
Overall: Had I known about the stud issue and noise I would have just bought a Cobb catback until I went bigger turbo.
Install: An absolute nightmare. I had the top bolt closest to the front of the car be cross threaded from the factory. I got it about 1/2 way out before I slipped off using a breaker car and completely rounded the bolt. I used heat, penetrating oil and a bolt extractor socket. I turned it about another half turn before it stripped going back the other way. I had work the next day and it was 10 degrees out. I rented a car for a week and started on it again Sunday. I ended up cutting off part of the bolt, leaving the cross threaded stud in the turbo housing and put on a nut that fit. It works just like the stud given by ATP but is kind of rigged. I plan to go bigger turbo in the next few months anyway so I'm not worried about it. Next complaint? The heat shield on the manifold. Not only is it hell to get the bolts out of but once you do it's damn near impossible to just remove from the engine bay. Other than those two issues the downpipe isn't bad. The catback was cake.
Overall: Had I known about the stud issue and noise I would have just bought a Cobb catback until I went bigger turbo.
