aFe MACH Force XP Race Pipe for BMW E9x M3. Has anyone installed this??

[yodlegern]

Originally Posted by yodlegern

HAHA! It did this morning.

And it came back...

[Drumm1n]

I'll installed the aFe Mach Force-XP HFC X-pipe with Resonators with aFe InTake Kit E90 M3 (stock muffler) and the combination sounds great with added Stage II tune from BPMsport.

I'd call it subtle aggressive, meaning at low throttle pretty much stock, but at 1/2 to WOT it's noticeably louder and more aggressive but still has the signature stock balance in sound. At highway speeds there's zero drone. There's a small amount of resonance at 3500 at WOT, minimized by staying above 3500 rpm!

[TomHudson]

My neighbours would kill me!

[Richbot]

I have had one of these (300cell resonated) on my car for about 1000 miles with no cel so far.

Fit: B-

- this did not fit the same as the stock pipe. It took a lot of swearing to get it lined up right. Luckily I have an MPE so the connecting pipes are adjustable. Also not a fan of the slip joint header flange that just squeezes the flared xpipe against the header, nor adding an extra joint under the car. Clearance wise they’re fine and they tuck nicely up under the car just a little lower than stock but still higher than some other low points. No whacks yet and I’ve been driving it in alleys etc where breakover angle sortof matters. It took significant fiddling to get it to line up with the mpe connecting pipes and that is frustrating because...well I mean come on it’s in the same spot on every car.

Definitely smells more than stock before the cats light off. But it’s not bad and no smell once they’re hot.

It’s way louder than stock. I have the MPE. Significantly more sounds in the cabin under load. But crucially at light load, no drone. Shuts up just like stock at highway speeds, just maybe 1db more, but not loud at all.

WOT is nasty. It introduced some rasp from 3k-4K and accentuates the MPE elsewhere. I’m a club racer so I like a little rasp. If you have heard an Aston V8 vantage N24 you know the general noise it makes at WOT, just without the obnoxiousness at part throttle.

No before and after dyno. It feels stronger particularly in the midrange and lowend. Meh, whatever, not going to claim I can say for sure it’s faster but it certainly feels that way mainly because loud noises . It’s also 9lb lighter than stock.

Overall I like it a lot. And considering the car hasn’t thrown a code (I have an Evolve Stage 1 tune, all O2 sensors still active, cold start still active yada) so far I’m very pleased.

Not using o2 extenders either.

Will report back here if I ever get a cat efficiency code. If I do I will probably go back to stock and not be too terribly sad because I feel like a bit of a goon making all this noise, but it’s a lot of fun while it lasts

[EricSMG]

Originally Posted by Richbot

No before and after dyno. It feels stronger particularly in the midrange and lowend. Meh, whatever, not going to claim I can say for sure it’s faster but it certainly feels that way mainly because loud noises . It’s also 9lb lighter than stock.

When you say mid-range, what range do you mean, exactly?

[roastbeef]

Originally Posted by EricSMG

When you say mid-range, what range do you mean, exactly?

3,500 to 6,500 rpm's probably.

[msan]

I read on evolve's website that any cat in primary position is robbing power...take it for what it is I guess

[Richbot]

Originally Posted by msan

I read on evolve's website that any cat in primary position is robbing power...take it for what it is I guess

This is true. The 300cell they use in the aFe is round rather than a pancake, and the brick is 25% less dense, and there's no secondary cat, piping runs are all truly 2.5" etc., so it's still going to flow better than stock, but not as well as the evolve pipe or catless setups

The ones with a 200cell cat in the secondary position, only, like evolve and the akra, obviously have no hope of passing the onboard cat efficiency monitoring without a tune that impacts sensor readiness in some way, so you have to decide what you want to make a priority. If I didn't care about at least making an attempt at keeping monitoring intact for purposes I would have chosen differently, but wanted to give this a shot since it's the only 300cell option on the market.

[Richbot]

Originally Posted by EricSMG

When you say mid-range, what range do you mean, exactly?

2500-5000 feels particularly improved, but really the biggest change of all that I've noticed is in part-throttle. It seems to take noticeably less throttle pedal to get the same amount of go at part-throttle.

Again, totally unscientific impression, but there it is

[TWiTCHY]

I paired this x-pipe with a Corsa rear expecting to get the same sound people have praised with the ESS HFC x-pipe + Corsa combination, but instead I got a loud, obnoxious trumpet. I had the pipe on for 24 hours before I swapped it back to my test pipe + OEM midpipe.

[Bartledoo]

Originally Posted by TWiTCHY

I paired this x-pipe with a Corsa rear expecting to get the same sound people have praised with the ESS HFC x-pipe + Corsa combination, but instead I got a loud, obnoxious trumpet. I had the pipe on for 24 hours before I swapped it back to my test pipe + OEM midpipe.

Can you put it back on and make a video? Sounds hilarious.

[TWiTCHY]

Originally Posted by ksteckba

Can you put it back on and make a video? Sounds hilarious.

NO.

[Mdriv3r]

Originally Posted by FATBMW

I'm curious to know if anyone has bought one of these and installed it. I can't find any reviews or videos on YouTube...

I'd like to know how it sounds on the stock catback and an aftermarket catback. aFe claims it produces 21hp and 35lbs torque.

http://afepower.com/shop/details_new...#38;brandID=84

Pretty awesome it has the 200 cell cats. I just installed a top speed x pipe with 2 resonators. The smell was terrible at first, like miserably bad. After driving a couple hundred miles and allowing the ecu adaptation etc... it smells a slight bit less strong, actually it's much better.

But still really noticeable. This is a good option bc it has the cats installed on it. 200 cel cats won't cause hardly any performance loss either.

I have a Borla atak and had a resonator delete before. It sounded deep and mean. With the new x pipe it's loud but much more raspy. Under WOT it sounds great. There is a very noticeable power gain too.

[Richbot]

So I’ve had this on the car for 2500 miles. Because I’m lazy and didn’t want to dig up and install the latest evolver software, I didn’t even clear adaptations and just plug and played it. My car has a Stage 1 tune, so the cat efficiency monitoring 02 sensors are still reading as from the factory supposedly. No CEL. Pretty confident I’ve driven it enough to say no CEl but we’ll see.

The sound with MPE is right in line with what I think the MPE + test pipes videos sound like. Maybe it’s a little quieter in cabin and a little less raspy. I love it when I’m on it. And at light throttle on the highway it’s almost as quiet as the MPE with stock pipe was. Definitely louder and bassier at lower rpm part throttle, but no drone.

Now I am only posting this now because I was waiting to see f I could cure a problem with the Xpipe to header/cat pipe joint. You’ll see in the pics from aFe there’s a clamp on each side of the x just upstream of the resonators that is designed to squeeze the xpipe’s relieved slip fit joint with the front pipes sufficiently to seal it up. This clamp is either not sufficient to squeeze the pipe or not big enough or the pipe is too thick wall, whatever t was, it was leaking at each relief in the xPipe on both sides.

So I bought two of these from summit and installed them without removing the pipe. Same concept but designed to sealnup a slip fit joint. Similar to the clamps sold with a lot of the test pipe kits. And now the leak is gone. So aFe if you’re listening, please take a look at your clamp setup.

[L4ces]

Originally Posted by Richbot

So I've had this on the car for 2500 miles. Because I'm lazy and didn't want to dig up and install the latest evolver software, I didn't even clear adaptations and just plug and played it. My car has a Stage 1 tune, so the cat efficiency monitoring 02 sensors are still reading as from the factory supposedly. No CEL. Pretty confident I've driven it enough to say no CEl but we'll see.

The sound with MPE is right in line with what I think the MPE + test pipes videos sound like. Maybe it's a little quieter in cabin and a little less raspy. I love it when I'm on it. And at light throttle on the highway it's almost as quiet as the MPE with stock pipe was. Definitely louder and bassier at lower rpm part throttle, but no drone.

Now I am only posting this now because I was waiting to see f I could cure a problem with the Xpipe to header/cat pipe joint. You'll see in the pics from aFe there's a clamp on each side of the x just upstream of the resonators that is designed to squeeze the xpipe's relieved slip fit joint with the front pipes sufficiently to seal it up. This clamp is either not sufficient to squeeze the pipe or not big enough or the pipe is too thick wall, whatever t was, it was leaking at each relief in the xPipe on both sides.

So I bought two of these from summit and installed them without removing the pipe. Same concept but designed to sealnup a slip fit joint. Similar to the clamps sold with a lot of the test pipe kits. And now the leak is gone. So aFe if you're listening, please take a look at your clamp setup.

[img]https://static.summitracing.com/glob...92200-1_ml.jpg[/img]

Not sure I am reading this correctly.

Are you saying that you hoped this combo would cut down on the rasp that you noted in the videos of those with test pipes, but instead the rasp was disappointingly the same?

[Richbot]

No

[Richbot]

Originally Posted by L4ces

Not sure I am reading this correctly.

Are you saying that you hoped this combo would cut down on the rasp that you noted in the videos of those with test pipes, but instead the rasp was disappointingly the same?

No, lol. If I was saying that that’s what I would have typed.

[L4ces]

Originally Posted by Richbot

No, lol. If I was saying that that’s what I would have typed.

Funny how things become clearer after re-reading. More volume and less rasp than that perceived in the videos is what I like.

[Richbot]

Yeah I just have no idea what an MPE + test pipes setup sounds like in person, because I've never been in one or around one to my knowledge, so, grain of salt and all that

I do know from firsthand experience it doesn't sound anything like the Akra Evo or the Dinan catless setup. It's like somebody put a bunch of amps on the MPE at high rpm, timbre seems the same but it's just ridonkulously loud now under overpasses etc at high revs, which makes sense because it's basically a straight-through muffler at high exhaust flows, unlike the Akra or DInan which have baffles with no "alternate path" through the muffler, I think. So long as you're not next to a wall/tunnel/under a bridge, you're still getting a lot of intake noise inside the cabin, just like MPE + stock midpipe. I'm hoping to balance it some with the Karbonius setup if it proves out as a good option.

[vroomM3]

I have the same Remus race cat-back exhaust system and I'm really tempted to get aFe mach force XP after watching some of these videos!

What does it involve to "tune" the car so it doesn't triger the CEL? And will it pass the emissions test that we have in VA?

[roastbeef]

Originally Posted by Richbot

So I’ve had this on the car for 2500 miles. Because I’m lazy and didn’t want to dig up and install the latest evolver software, I didn’t even clear adaptations and just plug and played it. My car has a Stage 1 tune, so the cat efficiency monitoring 02 sensors are still reading as from the factory supposedly. No CEL. Pretty confident I’ve driven it enough to say no CEl but we’ll see.

The sound with MPE is right in line with what I think the MPE + test pipes videos sound like. Maybe it’s a little quieter in cabin and a little less raspy. I love it when I’m on it. And at light throttle on the highway it’s almost as quiet as the MPE with stock pipe was. Definitely louder and bassier at lower rpm part throttle, but no drone.

Now I am only posting this now because I was waiting to see f I could cure a problem with the Xpipe to header/cat pipe joint. You’ll see in the pics from aFe there’s a clamp on each side of the x just upstream of the resonators that is designed to squeeze the xpipe’s relieved slip fit joint with the front pipes sufficiently to seal it up. This clamp is either not sufficient to squeeze the pipe or not big enough or the pipe is too thick wall, whatever t was, it was leaking at each relief in the xPipe on both sides.

So I bought two of these from summit and installed them without removing the pipe. Same concept but designed to sealnup a slip fit joint. Similar to the clamps sold with a lot of the test pipe kits. And now the leak is gone. So aFe if you’re listening, please take a look at your clamp setup.

so the joint between the resonators and the catalysts? i have a very slight rasp between like 2,500-3,500 rpm's if i'm at like 50% throttle. did this clamp get rid of that? i sort of suspected there was a leak, but i kinda didn't care.

[Richbot]

Yep, that's the joint. There's almost definitely a leak. I don't see how yours could be different unless it was made differently from mine. Really easy to find out, start the car cold, reach under the car to that joint and hold your hand upstream of the clamp not touching the pipe, if you feel exhaust hitting your hand (it won't be hot yet) you has leak

It's slightly quieter in the car now. The additional raspiness/edge from 3k+ with the MPE is still there but now it all comes out the back, heh