Which exhaust a standard or cherry bomb?
Discussion
So I need a new exhaust for my Chimaera 500. The one I have that came with the car seems to be an original standard but a previous owner had debaffled it (not terribly well). It's started to whistle on acceleration. I love the current exhaust note, not ridiculously loud but louder than stock and deep and throbby.
I don't want to go nuts with this like decat or wrap, but I've been recommended to ACT standard or cherry bomb.
I've heard a friends 500 with a stock standard exhaust and it's a bit tame but would the ACT cherry bomb be too loud?
I'd be grateful for thoughts.
Or, by chance, anyone live near Watford with an ACT cherry bomb exhaust I could hear?
I don't want to go nuts with this like decat or wrap, but I've been recommended to ACT standard or cherry bomb.
I've heard a friends 500 with a stock standard exhaust and it's a bit tame but would the ACT cherry bomb be too loud?
I'd be grateful for thoughts.
Or, by chance, anyone live near Watford with an ACT cherry bomb exhaust I could hear?
Buzzman11 said:
So I need a new exhaust for my Chimaera 500. The one I have that came with the car seems to be an original standard but a previous owner had debaffled it (not terribly well). It's started to whistle on acceleration. I love the current exhaust note, not ridiculously loud but louder than stock and deep and throbby.
I don't want to go nuts with this like decat or wrap, but I've been recommended to ACT standard or cherry bomb.
I've heard a friends 500 with a stock standard exhaust and it's a bit tame but would the ACT cherry bomb be too loud?
I'd be grateful for thoughts.
Or, by chance, anyone live near Watford with an ACT cherry bomb exhaust I could hear?
Not sure if you mean a real cherrybomb or just a similar type of silencer. Also not sure on the routing of the Tiv exhaust, however most Cherrybombs don't flow well enough and will be restrictive on such and engine if you are putting all 8 cylinders worth of exhaust gas through them.I don't want to go nuts with this like decat or wrap, but I've been recommended to ACT standard or cherry bomb.
I've heard a friends 500 with a stock standard exhaust and it's a bit tame but would the ACT cherry bomb be too loud?
I'd be grateful for thoughts.
Or, by chance, anyone live near Watford with an ACT cherry bomb exhaust I could hear?
You'd want to run a single Cherrybomb per cylinder bank after a crossover pipe (H or X).
Also watch, some Cheery bombs claim quite large inlet and exit diameters, however it's the diameter of the core that is the restriction (IMO).
ACT appears to have 2 cherry bombs silencers split from the single downpipe:
http://www.actproducts.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/20...
http://www.actproducts.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/20...
My car came with an ACT Y piece and a 'cherry bomb' silencer by Offords.
To be honest, if you want that screaming banshee sound and really pronounced suck back noise when you change gears, then a cherry bomb is your ticket.
I put up with it for a few weeks and the novelty soon wore off, so went back to a standard silencer. Combined with the ACT Y piece and the removed precats, I think I now have the best of both worlds, civilised when you want it to be but then a really nice noise when you open it up.
To be honest, if you want that screaming banshee sound and really pronounced suck back noise when you change gears, then a cherry bomb is your ticket.
I put up with it for a few weeks and the novelty soon wore off, so went back to a standard silencer. Combined with the ACT Y piece and the removed precats, I think I now have the best of both worlds, civilised when you want it to be but then a really nice noise when you open it up.
My old Chim 500 had the ACT Cherry Bomb system and sounded really good but was just a bit too loud at idle for my liking and I felt a bit of a nuisance in a queue of traffic.
My new 500 is all standard and frankly I prefer its quieter idle. It still sounds good enough at higher revs.
If none of that matters to you (and there's no reason it should) my old Chim was the better sounding of the two, overall.
My new 500 is all standard and frankly I prefer its quieter idle. It still sounds good enough at higher revs.
If none of that matters to you (and there's no reason it should) my old Chim was the better sounding of the two, overall.
jazzdude said:
I went back to a standard silencer, combined with the ACT Y piece and the removed precats, I think I now have the best of both worlds, civilised when you want it to be but then a really nice noise when you open it up.
This is exactly the recipe I ended up with and have been running for a good 5 years now, I've not once found it too noisy at idle, driving through town or on the motorway as I tour through Europe for hours at a time. I've also never felt the temptation to make the system louder, fitting the de-catted ACT Y piece and removing the pre-cats while leaving the silencer box standard is definitely louder than how the car left the factory and lets not forget TVRs were always known for their great sounding exhaust notes even in standard factory trim.Its only when pressing on do you get the full aural effects of the de-cat, at idle and cruising on the motorway the noise is close if not the same as stock, the other thing to consider is louder is a very different thing to nicer sounding, you can easily sleeve your Chimaera exhaust, many do and it'll definitely be a lot louder but the ones I've heard have not created what I would consider a nicer sound. The best sounding Rover V8TVR I ever heard was a pre-cat Griff with a stock silencer box so in my own way this is what I've tried to create with my 1996 Chimaera, by removing all my cats and leaving the silencer untouched I've got it to 95% of the glorious tuneful sounds that pre-cat Griff made, but I suspect I'd need the pre-cat manifolds to nail that elusive last 5%.
Getting shot of the cats definitely released some horsepower, it smoothed my hunting idle too, finally removing the cats lowered my engine bay temps while also massively enhancing the natural joyous V8 sounds without the need to even touch the silencer, I'd say as long as you can find a tester who'll pass the car on emissions then completing the full de-cat really is a no-brainer.
I've still yet to hear anything even even half as good as my setup (I'm biased I know) - I have the ACT sports manifolds (decat) with the full stainless cherrybomb rear system. It is loud, but it sounds amazing - confirmed by the number of thumbs up and happy faces seen from just about all bystanders - definitely not annoying 
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