Welly wrote:The 406 looks silly with a big pipe sticking out
So pick a tail pipe that doesn't look ridiculous. Mine looked fine:
You don't need to fit one with an enormous fart-can tailpipe; a well-designed and well thought out stainless steel exhaust does not have to be for the boy racers only.
I agree that only buying a backbox isn't going to give you any real performance lift, but it will have an effect on the exhaust note.
If you're going with a stainless system, get a full cat-back exhaust designed and fitted specifically for your car and engine size. I went with
Powerflow, but I've also heard good things about
Longlife and
Tony Banks Exhausts as well.
I found a slight but noticeable performance boost from the exhaust on my old 1.8. The effect it had on my Coupe was less pronounced, but it's a much more powerful car anyway (about 50 HP more than the 1.8 was).
When speaking to the exhaust company, tell them that you want the car to be nice and quiet when cruising, to give a nice gentle burble when idle, and to give a nice growl when accelerating hard. They can do that for you without compromising on performance or function. That way, your car won't be too loud and irritating at cruising speed, and won't piss your neighbours off when you leave for work in the mornings. And it won't be a race invitation to the boy racers next time they pull up beside you at the lights.
The system I had fitted to my 1.8 saloon was £320 all-inclusive (now sold to Shadowboy following the demise of that car), and the one currently fitted to my 2.2 Coupe was £360 all-inclusive. Well worth it in my books, because I know I won't have to replace a rusting exhaust mid-section on back-box any time soon.
