If you thought you stopped your engine from suffocating by installing a good intake to finally allow it to breathe like it should, you're only half way there. You might have cleared the way for the air to come in, but after it is mixed with the gas and burnt in the cylinder, it has to get out of there. Unfortunately the stock exhaust is going to get in its way.

Just like the stock intake system, the stock exhaust is designed to be very quiet and also very cheap. The piping inside the muffler has bends and chambers and a whole load of sound suppression material that makes it very quiet but also highly restrictive as well as heavy. It also looks very cheap, made out of plain galvanized steel. Have you looked at the weeny size of the piping, and the quality? Look at the bends. They are called press bends or crush bends because the machine that is used to bend the pipe literally crushes it, reducing the size of the pipe, making it's already small size smaller. Not a good idea if you want performance. For performance piping you want mandrel bending, where the pipe is bent smoothly without any reduction in size. Check this link to read more about crush bending versus mandrel bending.

Your exhaust system is really made up of three parts. The exhaust manifold, catalyst and the exhaust pipe/muffler.

We will start with the catalyst first because that is the easiest. On a naturally aspirated car like an Integra it makes no sense at all to remove the catalyst or gut it out or do whatever. Modern catalysts are really quite efficient and you will see minimal to no performance gains if you remove it. And by removing it you are making your car illegal, you will fail you smog test and you will be polluting the air for no reason. Don't touch it.

Exhaust Manifold/Header

Well, for whatever reason, the convention is that the stock part is called an exhaust manifold, while the improved performance part is known as a header.

The manifold/header is the first part of the exhaust system, where the exhaust streams coming from the engine are joined together into one to connect to the catalyst.

The stock manifold is made of heavy cast iron. A good header will be made from light weight aluminized steel or better yet polished stainless steel. A properly designed header will have carefully chosen pipe sizes, pipe lengths and configurations that are less restrictive than stock and actually create a scavenging effect whereby the exhaust pulses from one cylinder actually help to pull out the exhaust from its paired cylinder. Pretty cool we think.

There are two basic types of headers, described by the way the four exhaust streams are joined together. They are the four into one (4-1) type and the four into two into one type (4-2-1). Four into one headers allow the maximum top end power while sacrificing a little low end power when compared to the 4-2-1. The nature of the design of the 4-1 header means that the ground clearance is less than with a 4-2-1 design. This is an important consideration if your car is slammed to the ground like it should be. The 4-2-1 is the better all round performer.

When it comes to header brands, we recommend DC Sports headers. They are very high quality and give great performance gains and are emissions compliant. They are available in polished stainless steel and aluminized steel and will look great in your engine. Check out their site for more information. They have got dyno graphs as well as some info. on the great header test Sport Compact Car magazine did , where the DC Headers came out very well indeed.

Our friends at Carparts.com carry the full line-up of DC Headers for the Integras starting at $324.99. Before you buy though, make-sure to check our coupons and deals page . With our coupon deals you will be able to get your DC Header from them for under $300.00.

Exhaust

As we said already, the stock exhaust system is cheap and nasty so it must go, to be replaced by a performance exhaust system. A quality performance exhaust system will make your car go faster and look better. It will have larger, mandrel bent piping made from stainless steel or aluminized or ceramic coated steel. A 2 1/4" diameter is good for a 1.6 to 2.0 litre engine.

The muffler will be polished stainless steel with a straight through design to minimize the restriction and give a nice throaty sound. Finally it will have a nicely sized polished tip to finish of your car and give the look you always wanted.

We have a preference for Tanabe Exhausts, something about the way they look we just love. They come in four different styles which you can look at here, on their website. We like the G-Power Medallion and the Racing Medallion. The G-Power medallion is quite subtle and classy looking, for a car with minimal exterior mods, while the Racing Medallion is louder and more in your face. The muffler itself looks like a bike muffler.

Check the Carparts Homepage, they carry the lineup of tanabe exhausts, starting at $659.99. Make-sure to check our coupons and deals page if you plan on buying one, in order to guarantee that you get the lowest price.

Some other exhausts we recommend that can be found on the Carparts Homepage are:

The DC Sports exhaust system, which is quite similar to the Tanabe G-Power Medallion and starts at $540.99. This is a real bargain for what you get, especially considering the discount coupons. See it and read about it on their website here.

The HKS Dragger and Hiper exhausts. The dragger can be purchased as a muffler alone for $456.50, to connect onto the end of your stock piping. Not the ideal way to go but if you are strapped for cash, it will give you the look and sound you want. Plus the muffler is the most restrictive part of the exhaust system, so you will be eliminating the worst of it. The Hiper is the system pictured above and has a great looking muffler canister, which mounts to the car at an angle for that Japanese N1 look. They start at $608.00. You can read and see more of the HKS exhausts at their site, here.

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