My friend just got a new exhaust system on his car and it drones like all hell on the highway. He has an x pipe in his (on that note I have one on mine too...), and I have a small drone range, only 100-200 rpm which i stay out of and I'm fine, but his drones a lot more. If he removed it and went to the truest of true duals, would it get rid of the drone?

 

X-pipes don't create drone by themselves, however I can't speak from personal experience on the Z, only what I have read and seen. They did not create drone on any other performance car I have owned either. I believe there is more to it than just the x-pipe. You have to look at the exhaust system as a whole.

 

Droning doesn't have a direct relation to X or H pipes. Droning is because of the resonated frequencies that's bouncing to the ground the hit the bottom of the cabin. Those are the "escaped" frequencies that travelled through the straight pipes without any forms of daming (resonators), etc.

My car for example, has straight through pipes from headers through the mid section into the peforated X then into 2 individual resonators then to the mufflers. The front-mid section are straight through pipes, and thus causing lots of droning for the drivers and other inside the car. Therefore, the exhaust is louder inside compared to when observed outside the car.

 

X-pipes balance a dual system, just like an H pipe, though they are far more effective than a H pipe for V6's.

They do affect overall flow characteristics of an exhaust, so if the system did not have the X to begin with - sure it COULD drone, but the balancing affect on the system, and the increased gas scavenging, actually help to balance the pulses and quell droning, not the other way around.

Drone comes from devices and cheap/thin pipe. The pulse actually passes through the walls of the thin pipe or cheaper resonators/mufflers, and as the other said, bounces from the street back into the cabin.

Think of Drone as as exhaust pulse leak. Typically, the more devices in a system, the more chance there is for drone. Which also tells you that systems that do not drone, and have less devices, usually have much better quality mufflers in place as well, and they are doing their job appropriately.

Many systems out there, however, are designed to be very high pitched, and as a result, will also drone at the low end.

Rick

 

How much would a muffler shop charge to weld in an x-pipe?

 

i went to an el cheapo shop and it was 30 bucks

 

It depends on the X you get or if your having them make one. A Magnaflow perforated X, which is basically a muffler and HUGELY effective, will cost a bit more to install. If you figure 1 hour - you should be safe labor-wise.

Rick