If you want a great sounding exhaust that's nice and quiet tooling around the neighborhood but comes alive at wide open throttle followed by a state of hyper-aliveness when the valve train switches over to the fat cams, you might want to consider the OEM exhaust.
My 1991 NSX came with the Dali "GruppeN" exhaust, a nice light GruppeM clone that uses a pair of small Magnaflow mufflers to quiet things down a bit. It was fairly loud for my taste, especially cruising between 70 and 80 on the big slab. It also had a certain raspiness when heard from outside the car that I didn't care for. So I sold it and bought a used Comptech. The Comptech had a lot of miles on it but I just wanted to get some idea of what a new one would sound like before spending a grand on one.
The Comptech was quieter than the GruppeM but still had a drone at certain RPM with the engine cover in place. And it still didn't have as refined a sound as I wanted. The search continued as I listened to sound clips on the Internet and real NSX's in the more earthly relms. It occurred to me that I should try out an OEM unit, as I had not driven an NSX so equipped in many years and had never really listened to one from an outside-the-car vantage point. So I purchased a well used oem unit from a fellow Primer in Orlando, trading my used Comptech and adding perhaps 30 pounds to my car in the process.
You know what? There's a reason Honda hung this big lump in the back of the car...it sounds fantastic. It's quiet cruising around town or rolling down the Interstate but get on the skinny pedal a bit and it starts to growl. Open things up in the proper gear and the growl becomes louder and much more serious. Open the drivers window and get on the gas and the sound is glorious. To my ears, it is worth the extra weight and dated tips.
Of course such matters are very personal. And you are reading the opinion of the guy who started the Unofficial Weight Addition Thread. But if you have never driven an NSX with the OEM exhaust system intact, or listened to one in a fly-by, you should. You may be like me, and like the guys at Car and Driver who, in a recent feature on $25,000 used cars, gushed "...the flexible (NSX) engine absolutely wails above 6000 rpm. We nominate it as the best-sounding V-6 ever."
My 1991 NSX came with the Dali "GruppeN" exhaust, a nice light GruppeM clone that uses a pair of small Magnaflow mufflers to quiet things down a bit. It was fairly loud for my taste, especially cruising between 70 and 80 on the big slab. It also had a certain raspiness when heard from outside the car that I didn't care for. So I sold it and bought a used Comptech. The Comptech had a lot of miles on it but I just wanted to get some idea of what a new one would sound like before spending a grand on one.
The Comptech was quieter than the GruppeM but still had a drone at certain RPM with the engine cover in place. And it still didn't have as refined a sound as I wanted. The search continued as I listened to sound clips on the Internet and real NSX's in the more earthly relms. It occurred to me that I should try out an OEM unit, as I had not driven an NSX so equipped in many years and had never really listened to one from an outside-the-car vantage point. So I purchased a well used oem unit from a fellow Primer in Orlando, trading my used Comptech and adding perhaps 30 pounds to my car in the process.
You know what? There's a reason Honda hung this big lump in the back of the car...it sounds fantastic. It's quiet cruising around town or rolling down the Interstate but get on the skinny pedal a bit and it starts to growl. Open things up in the proper gear and the growl becomes louder and much more serious. Open the drivers window and get on the gas and the sound is glorious. To my ears, it is worth the extra weight and dated tips.
Of course such matters are very personal. And you are reading the opinion of the guy who started the Unofficial Weight Addition Thread. But if you have never driven an NSX with the OEM exhaust system intact, or listened to one in a fly-by, you should. You may be like me, and like the guys at Car and Driver who, in a recent feature on $25,000 used cars, gushed "...the flexible (NSX) engine absolutely wails above 6000 rpm. We nominate it as the best-sounding V-6 ever."
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