Post by wannabe on Jul 7, 2016 15:52:48 GMT
So, I thought I’d write a quick review because I have just had an AK Automotive 'Race' system (the version with no Cat, joining at the end of the manifold) fitted to my early 1.6.
Picture of system taken from website:
Website link: www.akautomotive-mx5.co.uk/services/ (It appears to be down at the moment... lol)
Previously I had some broken, rusty thing on there - I'm not even sure what make it was as it came with the car, but the tailpipe piece fell off one day where it exited the backbox, meaning all the noise was reverberating straight out of the backbox and round the boot and cabin instead of going out the back, and it was driving me insaaaaaaane because it was so loud and droning. Even with -32dB earplugs in, basically the quietest ones you can buy off the shelf, the droning was buzzing my head to the point of distraction and I had ringing ears and even short-term deafness after a run of any length without earplugs in. I had my SPL meter in the car to check it one day and, on C-weighted measurements, I saw 107dB at times, which was ridiculous.
I've only had the AK exhaust on for a few days now and have only had one drive of more than about 5 minutes (a trip of about half hour on the main A-roads and then 40 minutes back on narrow, windy country lanes), but *teenage girl mode* OMG - it is literally like a completely different car. Even the stupidly hard Bilsteins are not as annoying now, bizarrely!
It starts up with a bit of a growl and then settles to a quiet idle – it’s so quiet that you can have a conversation at perfectly normal levels, and I can overhear the conversations of passers-by on the other side of the road when I'm sitting idling, as opposed to the previous ridiculously loud, anti-social burbling that drowned everything else out. I've not been in a 5 with an OE exhaust but this must be what it is like - quiet, refined, quite calming really. However, despite being quiet to the ear, it has a subtle bassy undertone that you can feel in your body, which is pretty cool.
Once you set off it's still quiet and refined through the lower part of the rev range - you could make 'good progress' without being noticed if you kept your speed and momentum up but kept the revs low, which can be a bonus when you are in a hurry and don't want people to notice and think you're some sort of speed-demon maniac. It is also pretty quiet on the over-run through most of the rev range, from what I can tell, so it is perhaps not the exhaust for you if you want pops, bangs and flames
Once you get to the middle part of the rev range during acceleration, it gives a nice 'growl' on light to medium throttle pressure, and it has a slight crackle/raspiness when you are accelerating harder, which gets a bit more pronounced as you approach foot-to-the-floor and/or the top of the rev range. It is never loud or ‘blaring’, though; it is more ‘gruff’ but baritone in pitch, if that makes any sense(?!), and a lift of the throttle quietens things down nicely again. You won’t be scaring any horses with this or coming round a corner on a country road to see a family cowering on the grassy verge because it sounded like the apocalypse was about to come round the corner!
Whether it will change as it soots up a bit, I don’t know; I will have to report back when it’s been on a while and I have done more miles. Personally speaking, I think it would still be perfectly acceptable if it was a little bit more ‘burble-y’ on idle (just because I’m a bit of an attention whore really and like a car to sound a bit ‘potent’ at idle ), but then I am liking the peace and quiet so I don’t think I will complain if it stays as-is.
I’m hoping that the raspiness towards the top end will calm down a little – I really am not keen on raspy exhausts and bought this one on the basis that it was the one that sounded the least raspy of all of the ones I listened to on Youtube (although there were only two short clips of it on a 5 doing some drive-bys on track), so hopefully it will either stay the same or get more bassy instead… Fingers crossed, I guess!
An added benefit of the exhaust is that the change in mid-range pull/torque is noticeable, even on part-throttle! It might well have just been the old broken exhaust holding the car back by not operating as it should have been, but whereas the old one struggled through the mid-range before really punching through at the top end, now it seems to pick up a lot quicker and easier, which is a joy on third-gear country roads because you can just waft along rather than needing to change down to access some power. It could just be psychological, of course - wherein the blaring noise of the old one made the top end ‘feel’ faster than the mid-range, whereas now it is quiet enough that I can focus on how it is driving throughout the whole rev range – but it does feel like a different car now!
I think feeling like an entirely different car is the biggest and best (and most unexpected) change. Before, the rattling heat shield and excessive noise made it tiring over longer distances and when queuing in traffic because of the constant sensory battering (although it was fun when really in the mood and on the right road). Now, it is really quite relaxing to drive and requires less effort to concentrate properly, which can only be a good thing.
Is it perhaps a bit ‘boring’ and MX5OC? Maybe, but being boring is a trade-off I’m willing to make in order to keep my hearing and sanity and it does still sound good when giving it the beans or even just stroking it along at a nicely loping pace along a sweeping A-road. The tail pipe could also be a bit prettier because it is basically just plain tubing that sticks out quite far so it clears the bumper and doesn’t soot it up at all, but then if it gives more power, I can live without a tarty tailpipe.
At some point I’ll have to get it on the rollers at Skuzzle to see if it’s made any difference to measured power (I have read claims of ~5bhp somewhere), but subjectively speaking, it has definitely produced benefits over and above what I was expecting.
It also passed the non-Cat MOT with ease as well, even on a lightly tweaked n/a engine, which is a nice bonus.
I think the only issues of note were that delivery was a little slow (I had to ring to check on progress after about 3.5 weeks but it arrived within a couple of days after that call, and fabrication (in the UK IIRC) apparently takes a couple of weeks anyway), and that the kit seemed to be missing the springs and lambda blanking plug that it was supposed to come with (IIRC).
To be fair, though, I haven’t contacted AK since the second, chaser phone call so I’ve not given them any chance to respond on the latter issue, and I imagine it was just an oversight that they would have remedied had I notified them of it. I didn’t open the package myself because I would never have been able to repack it again to get it to the garage and I just stored it to give to the mechanic when it was time to fit it, whereas if I had opened it, I would have been able to give them a ring to ask prior to the car being up on ramps at the garage.
So… the AK Automotive ‘Race’ system – not one of the cheaper systems, and it apparently took a little bit of work to get it fitted (but then I’m sure they all do!), but the end results are definitely better than I was ever expecting and I am very pleased with it.
It’s definitely a ‘Recommended’ from me if you’re looking for a civilised, OE-style system with a bit more ‘voice’ when under power
I will report back at a later date when it has bedded in a bit more. I’m sure it will change slightly but I am hopeful that it will stay much the same as it is now!
Thanks for listening!
Picture of system taken from website:
Website link: www.akautomotive-mx5.co.uk/services/ (It appears to be down at the moment... lol)
Previously I had some broken, rusty thing on there - I'm not even sure what make it was as it came with the car, but the tailpipe piece fell off one day where it exited the backbox, meaning all the noise was reverberating straight out of the backbox and round the boot and cabin instead of going out the back, and it was driving me insaaaaaaane because it was so loud and droning. Even with -32dB earplugs in, basically the quietest ones you can buy off the shelf, the droning was buzzing my head to the point of distraction and I had ringing ears and even short-term deafness after a run of any length without earplugs in. I had my SPL meter in the car to check it one day and, on C-weighted measurements, I saw 107dB at times, which was ridiculous.
I've only had the AK exhaust on for a few days now and have only had one drive of more than about 5 minutes (a trip of about half hour on the main A-roads and then 40 minutes back on narrow, windy country lanes), but *teenage girl mode* OMG - it is literally like a completely different car. Even the stupidly hard Bilsteins are not as annoying now, bizarrely!
It starts up with a bit of a growl and then settles to a quiet idle – it’s so quiet that you can have a conversation at perfectly normal levels, and I can overhear the conversations of passers-by on the other side of the road when I'm sitting idling, as opposed to the previous ridiculously loud, anti-social burbling that drowned everything else out. I've not been in a 5 with an OE exhaust but this must be what it is like - quiet, refined, quite calming really. However, despite being quiet to the ear, it has a subtle bassy undertone that you can feel in your body, which is pretty cool.
Once you set off it's still quiet and refined through the lower part of the rev range - you could make 'good progress' without being noticed if you kept your speed and momentum up but kept the revs low, which can be a bonus when you are in a hurry and don't want people to notice and think you're some sort of speed-demon maniac. It is also pretty quiet on the over-run through most of the rev range, from what I can tell, so it is perhaps not the exhaust for you if you want pops, bangs and flames
Once you get to the middle part of the rev range during acceleration, it gives a nice 'growl' on light to medium throttle pressure, and it has a slight crackle/raspiness when you are accelerating harder, which gets a bit more pronounced as you approach foot-to-the-floor and/or the top of the rev range. It is never loud or ‘blaring’, though; it is more ‘gruff’ but baritone in pitch, if that makes any sense(?!), and a lift of the throttle quietens things down nicely again. You won’t be scaring any horses with this or coming round a corner on a country road to see a family cowering on the grassy verge because it sounded like the apocalypse was about to come round the corner!
Whether it will change as it soots up a bit, I don’t know; I will have to report back when it’s been on a while and I have done more miles. Personally speaking, I think it would still be perfectly acceptable if it was a little bit more ‘burble-y’ on idle (just because I’m a bit of an attention whore really and like a car to sound a bit ‘potent’ at idle ), but then I am liking the peace and quiet so I don’t think I will complain if it stays as-is.
I’m hoping that the raspiness towards the top end will calm down a little – I really am not keen on raspy exhausts and bought this one on the basis that it was the one that sounded the least raspy of all of the ones I listened to on Youtube (although there were only two short clips of it on a 5 doing some drive-bys on track), so hopefully it will either stay the same or get more bassy instead… Fingers crossed, I guess!
An added benefit of the exhaust is that the change in mid-range pull/torque is noticeable, even on part-throttle! It might well have just been the old broken exhaust holding the car back by not operating as it should have been, but whereas the old one struggled through the mid-range before really punching through at the top end, now it seems to pick up a lot quicker and easier, which is a joy on third-gear country roads because you can just waft along rather than needing to change down to access some power. It could just be psychological, of course - wherein the blaring noise of the old one made the top end ‘feel’ faster than the mid-range, whereas now it is quiet enough that I can focus on how it is driving throughout the whole rev range – but it does feel like a different car now!
I think feeling like an entirely different car is the biggest and best (and most unexpected) change. Before, the rattling heat shield and excessive noise made it tiring over longer distances and when queuing in traffic because of the constant sensory battering (although it was fun when really in the mood and on the right road). Now, it is really quite relaxing to drive and requires less effort to concentrate properly, which can only be a good thing.
Is it perhaps a bit ‘boring’ and MX5OC? Maybe, but being boring is a trade-off I’m willing to make in order to keep my hearing and sanity and it does still sound good when giving it the beans or even just stroking it along at a nicely loping pace along a sweeping A-road. The tail pipe could also be a bit prettier because it is basically just plain tubing that sticks out quite far so it clears the bumper and doesn’t soot it up at all, but then if it gives more power, I can live without a tarty tailpipe.
At some point I’ll have to get it on the rollers at Skuzzle to see if it’s made any difference to measured power (I have read claims of ~5bhp somewhere), but subjectively speaking, it has definitely produced benefits over and above what I was expecting.
It also passed the non-Cat MOT with ease as well, even on a lightly tweaked n/a engine, which is a nice bonus.
I think the only issues of note were that delivery was a little slow (I had to ring to check on progress after about 3.5 weeks but it arrived within a couple of days after that call, and fabrication (in the UK IIRC) apparently takes a couple of weeks anyway), and that the kit seemed to be missing the springs and lambda blanking plug that it was supposed to come with (IIRC).
To be fair, though, I haven’t contacted AK since the second, chaser phone call so I’ve not given them any chance to respond on the latter issue, and I imagine it was just an oversight that they would have remedied had I notified them of it. I didn’t open the package myself because I would never have been able to repack it again to get it to the garage and I just stored it to give to the mechanic when it was time to fit it, whereas if I had opened it, I would have been able to give them a ring to ask prior to the car being up on ramps at the garage.
So… the AK Automotive ‘Race’ system – not one of the cheaper systems, and it apparently took a little bit of work to get it fitted (but then I’m sure they all do!), but the end results are definitely better than I was ever expecting and I am very pleased with it.
It’s definitely a ‘Recommended’ from me if you’re looking for a civilised, OE-style system with a bit more ‘voice’ when under power
I will report back at a later date when it has bedded in a bit more. I’m sure it will change slightly but I am hopeful that it will stay much the same as it is now!
Thanks for listening!