Cutting a Hole in Nolan's Exhaust to See How Loud it Gets

- What is it that everyone wants to do to their car? Make it stronger, of course. But there are many ways to make a car sound

loud

er. Well, today we're going to take a look at one of those ways and install a set of wireless

exhaust

cutouts on my son Nolan's Mustang, so he can go from quiet to rowdy with the push of a button. . What do you think? - Sounds really good. - Let's do it. - Yeah. Money pit, honey. (thunder) (hip-hop music) - Thanks to Off The Record for sponsoring this episode. - President's Day is coming up and we all know you love three-day weekends.

But remember, the threat of speeding tickets looms large during the holidays. That's why it's always a good idea to have the Off The Record app downloaded to your phone and ready to go. They have a network of attorneys who can help you fight your ticket. And they even offer a full refund. if they can't reduce it or keep it off their driving record. So, don't panic. - Sign up now to use code DONUT for 10% off your first ticket at OffTheRecord.com/Donut. - Time flies. (clock ticking) The inevitable passage of time continues. - Alright Nolan, before we continue, let's find out how

loud

your car is now.

I have a decibel meter. - Sweet. - What are you, any guesses? How many decibels do you think you are emitting at idle? - At idle, probably like 60 decibels at idle. - That's a good assumption. A stab in the dark, I understand. - And then like a good acceleration, maybe like 80. - You know what? I bet you're close. Let's find out. - Well. I have no idea. Hi Jobe, are you ready? - Yes. (engine revving) Oh, pretty quiet. Okay, now try to keep it at 4000 RPM. (engine revving) - Okay, so it's pretty quiet. We have 101 decibels while accelerating it.

So, that's basically our number to beat with the cuts. I don't think it's going to be a problem. I think we're going to make this a lot louder. Alright, while Nolan

gets

the car off the ground, let's talk about some of his options for

exhaust

modifications. Now, first of all, why would you even do an exhaust modification? Well, we've talked about this before. We have made some videos on escape topics. You can consult them here and here. But just to cover it quickly, of course, modifying the exhaust can make it sound better and free up some extra horsepower.

But there are some ways to do it. I mean, if you have a lot of money, you can replace the entire exhaust from start to finish. But, if you only have a little money, you can simply replace a piece or part. For example, you can make a rear axle or a rear jack. So all those mods are cool, but they pretty much leave you with one mode, and that's noisy. Which is fine for a lot of people and a lot of cars, but there are a lot of people with daily drivers who wish they could make more noise, but also like to be able to drive comfortably and quietly.

So that's where you get to something like what we have today, which is exhaust cutouts. So Nolan will be able to press a button and make a bunch of noise, and then press it again and be silent again without even thinking about it. It's really convenient. Now, the cutouts that we're going to put on Nolan's car actually come from where I used to work. So, shout out to my guys at ECS Tuning. Let's take a look at the clippings they sent. (air whistle) How's it going, Nolan? - You want it higher, probably? - My God, much higher. (upbeat music) Alright, this is what we have.

We have two cuts from my guys at ECS. They are really nice. They are made of stainless steel and are vacuum operated. So we're going to attach the Nolan motor vacuum to these canisters on the cutouts. And that's what will physically open the trapdoors here. But in operation, all Nolan will have to do is click a button on the keychain, and then that will activate a solenoid that sends that vacuum into the canister and opens or closes the cutout. So, this is all that will be in Nolan's car or keychain. And then, this is what will be under the car doing the trimming work.

So, they are pretty simple. They simply give the escape a path to freedom. And all we have to do is cut some exhaust off of Nolan's car and stuff this stuff in. It should be pretty easy. - Let's take our cutouts and find a place along the tailpipe where these guys will fit. And then we'll measure and cut out a section of the exhaust and replace it. And there you have it, now you have the path for the escape to escape. -Hey, Nolan. Stop talking about it and let's do it. - Well. - Alright. It's time to install these things.

So, let's do a little divide and conquer setup. Nolan will get under the hood and work on installing the vacuum solenoid. It should be pretty easy. And I'm going to go under the car and install the trims, which should be pretty easy as well. - Let's do it. - Cool. - And time! I don't know how to wire things. (upbeat music) - Well, under the hood, Nolan basically works two jobs. First of all, we must connect the vacuum system to the engine, as we talked about. The vacuum line will have to go back to the cutouts to activate them.

So, that should be pretty easy. We have some T's that come with the kit and we just need to physically connect to a vacuum line. And then in line on that vacuum line that we took out will be this solenoid. The vacuum will come out of the engine and then return to the trims. And basically, this is what turns on and off when you press the button to activate the trims. Now, what triggers this is this. So we also need to install this little box that connects to the solenoid. And this is our wireless keychain receiver.

So this basically recognizes the signal when Nolan presses the button. He draws power from his battery and his ground. And then he sends a signal to this solenoid that lets the vacuum through, which sends it back to the cutouts, and then they magically open and close again when you press the button. So it's really a simple setup, but there are only a handful of things to do. All we have to do is make them. - Very well, where is the (beep), there it is. The diameter of the vacuum line is much larger than our reducer. It doesn't even hold up.

First, I already cut this vacuum line, so this is the one we need to continue with. And there really aren't many options when it comes to vacuum lines on this engine, which is pretty interesting. So we'll have to go to the Pep Boys down the street and hopefully get something that works for this. Because as it is now, my car is motionless. Alright, while Nolan works on that, I'm going to go down here and mark what we need to cut out so we can install the cutouts. It should be easy enough, but we'll have to figure out how to stagger them so they both fit in the space we have.

Look what we can do. Okay, so we need to trim the inside of these pieces of tape and just trim this section here. And then our cutout will replace it and slide over both ends of the tube, and that's it. We just have to do that on both sides. Okay, there are many ways to cut an exhaust pipe. You can use a

cutting

wheel, reciprocating saw, or hacksaw. But there is also one of these. This is an exhaust pipe cutter. Basically, there are a bunch of very sharp, hardened steel wheels here. I basically just wrap this around the exhaust pipe and then hold it here at the bottom, squeeze the pliers to put pressure on it.

And then, I can do something like that and it should go through it. They are quite nice, they only cost 30 or 40 dollars. Good! Single section disconnector. Decent cut, we'll clean it up with a file. Now I just have to make this cut and get this piece out of here. Alright, well, it looks like the tail section exhaust will have to go all the way down to give me enough room to fit the old cutout in the middle, which, I mean, makes sense. But I was really hoping I could push this further. But I just can't do it.

Okay, well, the first one is more or less in place. We had to tighten a few things and then rehang this section of the exhaust. But the good news is that it fits. It's not going to make contact with anything. And we should have no problem routing our vacuum line there. Okay, I think I'll be able to make this work with a little trimming. And the other good news is that Nolan found what he needed and now he's back. - This guy. Great, and he looks at that! It's cute, like this, this little angled tee here sets us up for success, hopefully.

Alright, next step, I'm going to connect the smaller vacuum line that will feed back to the solenoid that Zach is working on. So, we'll do that. Here we go. Just like any other type of line, you'll want to avoid placing this near really hot surfaces because you don't want to melt a

hole

in your vacuum line. And today I feel good. Remove the steering wheel here to have a better view of the road situation. It's not a big deal when you have a good impact gun. Alright, as you can see, hanging my little, my little hose down.

Alright, Jobe had a good idea to route the vacuum lines as close to the fuel lines as possible, simply because they're already protected by this little skid plate here. And I think it's a good idea, because right now the route I have is right next to the exhaust. So, that's not what we want. - Okay, well the second one is already installed and I haven't even cut it out yet. And it's really not bad. We're probably losing an inch of ground clearance here, which I don't like very much. So I'm going to trim this reduction so I can rotate it a little more and save Nolan's ground clearance.

It should be OK. Alright, well, I'm going to work on trimming this twist. Do you want to work on the solenoid trigger wiring? - Sure. - Or find a place to set it up or any of that stuff? - Yes Yes Yes. Do that. - Let's do it. - Well. - Let's do it. (rock music) - Alright, while Zach finishes the back, we'll continue ahead. We're going to connect the antenna box to the fuse relay here. Make sure the cable management is done correctly, because this looks really bad right now. And also, find a place to mount this solenoid.

So, I ran the cable into the engine bay. I was just going to zip tie the existing wiring harness. But Jobe had a very good point that that would look like this (bleep). So what I did was I undid the hood here so I could hide the cable under here. There is a lot of space. And just throw him in there and Bob is your uncle, you know? Now I have a couple of options for mounting the antenna box to the shock tower. There's already a pre-existing

hole

there that we could probably unscrew and get working.

But the holes in the unit itself are actually very small. So I don't feel very good about it, I'm just a little weird. So the other option is some double sided tape. Really easy, you don't need to cut anything, you don't need to use any tools and it will probably last a long time. You can do it in two directions with double-sided tape. It will either last like a week or you will never be able to remove it from anything in your entire life without the help of a solvent. So, I think it's a pretty decent option. - Okay, well, you still have a little coverage left.

Not much, of course. I'm going to clean it and then try it. I think it will fit. Alright, I'm just testing the fit to see which of these loops fit best on the main power cord. It looks like the smallest one, which is the one I wanted to go with anyway. So, that's good. So this will be power, and then we have to find land somewhere, and then we'll be fine, which is pretty good, actually. This could be land right here. - Yeah, that should be pretty good. It should have decent ground clearance and fits well.

It still goes down pretty well. It should come out of the pipe a little and touch the ground. Yeah, I think that'll be great. Let me put this back to the middle. - Where is that check valve? - You know, I mean it's on this vine. (punch landing) Ouch! Wow, (bleep)! I had never been hit like that in the armpit. I moved it before, but I don't remember where. (upbeat music) Okay, now I'm just tightening the clamps on the cutouts. I think I have them in their final position, nice and packed here. It's a little tight here, so I'll keep an eye on it, make sure it doesn't make contact when they warm up.

Because, obviously, the exhaust

gets

very hot when the car is running and therefore expands. So I'm going to make sure none of this makes contact once it's hot. But I think we're going to be fine. So I'm going to tighten them up and then we'll have to put the vacuum lines on the containers. Okay, so the cutouts are completely installed. They are all connected. And Nolan has it all wired under the hood. So, the installation is done. Now, we just have to get the car off the jack stands and let this baby sing. - Okay, let's do it. (car starting) Do you want me to try it? - Let's open the puppies.

Oh yeah! (engineaccelerating) That's more like it. (engine revving) - Okay, now that the cutouts are on and running, let's get some decibel readings and see how loud they are now. - Jobe, are you ready? - Yeah! Well, it's now open. Alright, give it some revs. (engine revving) Okay, now try to keep it at 4000, okay? (engine revving) That's good! Okay, I don't like it. It's a big surprise, but we detected a few decibels across the board. We got about three at idle, we got about 15 revving it, and we got about 21 at 4000 RPM. That's a lot of decibels.

And the thing doesn't sound crazy. I think it sounds really good and refined. But I also think it will sound even better on the road with some load. So, let's drive it. And God help you if there are crowds out there. - Very original. Very good, hopefully we don't eliminate it, where should we go? - Take it off. - Let's go there. - Any way you want. You know, the ground clearance, first of all, it looks like you have a lot of ground clearance. We really didn't lose much. But it's also very close to your axle, so you know that anything you hit will hit your tires. - I'm going to turn this off real quick so we can talk. - I love talking over the noise of the exhaust.

I don't know about you. Alright, let's let this baby sing. (engine revving) Well, the Mustang finally sounds like a Mustang. -He does it, he really does! Sounds great. - Do you like it? - I love it! It's not, I mean, I'm sure it's very unpleasant on the outside when we did that. - I don't think unpleasant is the right word. - But that's the sound you want when you have a car like this. - Yes, when you have a V8, you should listen to it. - Yes. - And now I'm glad you can. And it's also a good thing that you can't do it either. - Yes ok?

You know, you can close it and go into your house and not wake up your neighbors. - I wouldn't want to have this all the time, that's for sure. - Good. Yeah, and I get it, you know? It's really nice to have a car that's just comfortable. - Yes. - Well Nolan, I'm glad the Mustang finally sounds like a Mustang. - Yes, thanks. - Yes. Well, hey man, whenever you want. And also another thank you to my friends at ECS for sending us the clippings. - Yes, definitely. - Thank you so much. Sweet way to make Nolan's Mustang sound cool.

Also, thank you very much for watching. I hope you had a good time helping us make Nolan's Mustang make some noise. So thanks again for watching. Follow me on Instagram @ZackJobe. Follow Nolan @NolanJSykes. And we'll see you next week. Bye bye! (engine revving) Oh, do you want some?