How to Select A Good Performance Honda Acura Muffler

One of the key parts in your exhaust system is the muffler. The muffler job is to mainly reduce the noise coming from the engine. A typical stock muffler has a labyrinth like internal flow path with baffles that makes the exhaust to reverse direction and lower the noise. A stock muffler is a horsepower killer because it makes a lot of restriction for the exhaust gases. It also increases the back pressure making the engine work harder to pump the exhaust out of the cylinders. Some stock mufflers can make up to 20 psi backpressure. A well designed performance exhaust system typically has about 3-6 psi. A straight pipe has about 1-3 psi. Never run a straight pipe (no muffler at all) unless you want to get in big trouble with the law.

To get the least amount of pressure performance Honda Acura mufflers have a straight through design. These mufflers have an inner core that it is straight through with no buffing at all. You can see through them. These mufflers quiet the exhaust by absorbing the noise. The inside of the muffler contains a stainless steel mesh and heat resistant fibers. The noise from the exhaust is absorbed by the fiber padding. The outside core is usually made of stainless steal. The longer the muffler the quieter it is. The length has no effect on the backpressure just the noise reduction.

When buying a performance Honda Acura straight through muffler look for one with a perforated inside core if you want to make horsepower. A good straight through muffler is going to add only 1-3 lbs of backpressure to the exhaust system. Mufflers like Walker Ultra Flow, Apexi, Borla, Magna Flow, Greaddy, Tanabe, Ansa are a good low backpressure mufflers. Performance Honda Acura mufflers are usually made of stainless steel, carbon fiber or titanium. Some times besides the usual black, the carbon fiber ones are colored blue, red , cherry or gray.

A disadvantage of a straight through muffler is that is louder. Usually performance muffler needs a sub muffler or a resonator to keep the exhaust noise in a reasonable level. The resonator is placed somewhere in between the catalytic converter and the muffler. The longer the resonator is the better the noise reduction is going to be. If you are designing your own exhaust system it is important to keep it pretty quiet. You may think that the loud racy sound is cool, but the local police will not.

Many enthusiasts like to add a big exhaust tip to the stock muffler. The tip does look good but does not increase the horsepower. It also can send the signal that you are an amateur and not a real player. If you are on a tight budget and you are serious about performance Honda Acura cars don’t get an exhaust tip it is a waste of money. Some big tips feature resonated cores which quiets the exhaust noise a bit. They usually have perforated or meshed inner pipes. These big tips are actually functional and you will not look like an amateur on the race track or the street with one of them. The installation of a performance Honda Acura exhaust muffler usually is pretty easy. Most mufflers fit right where the stock one used to be and use all of the original brackets and hardware to make the connection to the remaining exhaust pipes. They could be connected to the exhaust pipe simply by exhaust clamp or with a couple of bolts depending on the manufacturer. Some times welding or cutting might be required to fit the muffler. The manufacturer should tell you if it is a direct fit or if it needs to be welded. Performance muffler would add more horsepower and will make your Honda Acura look great too. This is one of the few performance upgrades that is a win-win from any where you look at it. Your engine has more horsepower and the car looks and sounds cool. Expect to get from 3 to 7 more horsepower depending on the modifications done to the engine and the rest of the exhaust system. A straight through muffler is must if you are going with turbo charger, supercharger or nitro oxide system.  Performance exhaust muffler can be installed on any Prelude, Civic, RSX, Integra or any other model Honda Acura car.

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