5th Gen Exhaust Advice.

Hi all,

Have a stock prelude with an induction kit, thats all. Now I am thinking of a performance exhaust system however, My car is a year 2000.

i came across a website (cant find the damn link now) which said that in 1999 Honda improved the exhaust system of the preludes and added 5hp by doing so.

So what my question is, that if I were to go with a performance CAT BACK exhaust (CUSTOM) would It really make a difference, or is the stock exhaust in the 2000 good enough.

Many thanks

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FOUND THE LINK http://www.nexttestdrive.net/99prelude.html :frog:

u have to keep one thing in mind: when honda/acura/whatever designs a car they must balance the engineering between several things like noise dampering, fuel economy, and performance. Any company out there specializing in aftermarket exhaust (like greddy or A'pexi) drives 99% for the performance part, and in most cases hinders their products performance only to the point where its state legal. A performance exhaust system would prolly flow better than stock, but u should complete the system with a set of headers.

thanks for the advice.

I've got a Custom built Cat-back system installed. Car seems to rev quicker and has better low-end torque. Center box will be replaced with a smaller one sometime this week as the big box rattles. a smaller box should introduce a nice sporty sound too.

I am now thinking of getting Headers, Stainless Steel ones, maybe a 4/2/1 design.

any recommendations??

hmm, most people notice a loss of low end power after putting an aftermarket exhaust. where the gains usually are are in the high end. the biggest attribute of an aftermarket exhaust where the power gains come from is the muffler. the stock muffler is designed for efficiency and quietness, which makes it highly restrictive. generally the more straight through the design, the louder it gets, but the more power you extract from the system. an exhaust is only as good as its widest opening. keep in mind that just about any muffler shop you go to get get a custom exhaust built will use a crush bender and not mandrel. the difference is that a mandrel bent exhaust has a consistent pipe diameter throughout the system. in crush bending, the bends are 'crushed' and the diameter decreases. so for example, if you get a 2.25" custom exhaust, the straight areas of the pipes will be 2.25", but where the pipes bend the diameter may be only 2". i had a custom job on my exhaust the same way, then forked out some money to get a brand name mandrel bent system. not a drastic improvement but noticable at best. not to mention it sounds better than my custom one. you can order pre-mandrel bent pieces, but after shipping, putting the pipes together, you're looking at some more money. if you're getting a straight pipe (with no resonator), it'd be very loud. so that's another cost if you're not a fan of loudness. my custom exhaust with resonator, piping and muffler, i paid over $300. a little more and you can get a brand name mandrel bent system. just a thought for you.

what other mods do you have on your ride? as for the header, DC sports makes a 4-2-1 design in ceramic coating or stainless steel, which is what most people opt for. if you're willing to pay the price, kamikaze makes a better header for the prelude which i would recommend, but again they're pricey. if i remember right, it's a 4-1 design and IMO, not worth it since swapping the header on preludes doesn't make enough improvement to substantiate the investment, especially if your car is just a street car. the DC sports header will be fine. but that's all up to you.

sorry for the long narrative but i hope this helps some.

The only mods I've done on my 99 Base under the hood are a K&N filter element and the Thermal cat-back. What we found is that fuel economy is improved and that the engine does indeed breathe a bit more freely.
I will not recommend that you put a header on your 2000 as the onle that is on now is as close to optimum as you will get without some other work being done. I have no idea what the HP/Torque gains are and won't until we dyno the car. With the Thermal you know that something good is happening <BG>.

hi jc and del

thanks for your replies. interesting comments.

the center silencer will be replaced with a smaller one this friday as the current one is too big and rattles.

once that's complete I was thinking of getting a 4/2/1 SS DC sports Header. but you are saying that the original is good enough. the idea being that the I/H/E together would bring the gains that I have been expecting.


could you shed some light on this.

I will agree with Del that there are some things to consider here about doing a custom setup. Being in England, you may not have some of the pieces we can get off the shelf here. I can tell you that the Thermal exhaust does use a smaller resonator unit under the tunnel than stock and that the muffler is very small in comparison because it is a straight thru design. The piping from the cat to the muffler is 2.25". Mandrel bending makes the flow much smoother and thus aids in increasing HP/Torque output. I use the Prelude for road trips and lapping days at several tracks and have found that it runs very well from about 4000 rpm up to 7000. VTEC engagement is right on at 5200 rpm and you do feel the car "pull to about 6500 in a very nice way.
Dimensional change from stock on the resonator is that the diameter of the case is about 1" smaller and the length is 3" shorter. The packing is a combination of stainless steel "wool" and fibreglass.
Good luck with your project.

Hi,

Thanks to all that replied. The custom exhaust as dell said is crush bent and not mandrel bent so Yes I am losing some pipe width down from 2.25". however the sound is excellent (not too loud, enough to be noticed. loud in VTEC, silent when crusing, perfect). And the car revs and pulls better than before. not sure what the perfromance gains are, the mechanic did say that I should expect around 5hp with the exhaust.

I already have a BMC CDA induction kit, and my next mod will be the header.

In Hindsight, I probably should have changed the header before the exhaust, oh well, you learn.

Most people with 5th gen's end up with DC sports or Spoon HEaders. SS 4/2/1 is the design that I think should work best for me.

What are your thoughts about Apexi VAFC. some people (www.ntpog.org) say that OBD2 cars DETUNE the mods and that the ECU needs to be reset regularly. What you say?

regards

OBDII just prevents the car from responding to mods as well as OBDI cars. the apexi vafc is good. but if you ever go FI, i'd suggest a hondata or maybe even the aem ecu.

i think the factory exhaust system isnt too bad, but it's too quiet. the best gains i got from the car was cai intake, headers, and vafc. (well, nitro was the biggest..heheeh) the greddy evo is more of a tone adder and damn it sounds nice (imo). :D

i use to use RSR exhaust. it was nice too, but for my taste, it was too quiet. the evo with its straightback design did take out some punch from the low-end, but the highs feel real good.

oh yah, dont forget to reset your ecu every 250miles or so...or cut off the backup memory feed into the ecu. check out ntpog site.