Borla Atak is my favorite exhaust

[brodiem]

I went through a bit of a journey looking for the perfect exhaust setup, and so I thought I'd share..

After initally buying the car, I knew the first thing I needed was something to wake up the exhaust. Within the first couple of weeks, I bought a Borla Atak rear section. Being in Canada, it was readily available (and on sale), and the reviews were overall positive, despite Borla having a reputation for an "American muscle car exhaust".

I liked it. I was a bit disappointed in the volume though. For a race exhaust, it seemed kind of tame. The drone was manageable but was still there.

Next I added AA test pipes. When I first started up the car, the volume was substantially increased, not nearly to the level of what I thought would happen. I thought for sure something wasn't tight and I was leaking exhaust. It wasn't, and the overall character of the Atak was very different, but in a good way. Very aggressive sounding at 3.5K+ RPM. Drone also became very minimal.

As time went on, I wondered what I was missing out on, given that I had this "American V8" exhaust, and the likes of exotic race exhausts like Eisenmann were out there. At times I felt like the Atak was maybe just a bit too out of character for a BMW, and I started to get curious.

I ran across a pretty good deal on a Gintani Sport exhaust, so I thought I would try it out. At idle and lower RPMs in general, this exhaust is very deep sounding, and louder than the Borla. I really liked the noise it made at lower RPMs - it sounded like I had more displacement than 4L. But above 3K, the sound really diminished to where the intake noise overtook the exhaust. I didn't like this sort of non-linear output. If anything, I wanted the opposite. I would say though that Gintani was my favorite appearance wise, with the large straight cut matte black tips.

I really wanted to try Eisenmann. It's the talk of the town on the forums, the youtube clips sounded great, and they're well built. I found someone selling an E. Race on the forums for a pretty good price, so I thought I'd bite. Fast forward, it turns out the guy actually had an E. Sport. I think I left it on the car for about 2 days. The sound signature was nice, but these are pretty close to OEM level sound output.

Seeing how well Eisenmann was built (these things are tanks), and having it in my mind that I wanted E. Race, I bit the bullet and ordered one brand new. It was built to order and shipped from Eisenmann in Germany, confirmed by the production date on its ID plate. I thought for sure my search was over. After installing it, the low end sounded very good. A little bit deeper than the Borla. But to my surprise, like other Sport exhausts, beyond 3K RPM, the sound becomes more neutral. My Borla was substantially louder than this. I started to have some doubts - the consensus out there is that this should be LOUD. I even e-mailed Eisenmann and asked if there could be some production mistake, and sent them a pic of the ID plate. They informed me that E. Race should be 3 - 6 db louder than OEM, which seemed about what I was experiencing. But they said I need to allow 5000-6000km of break-in (this seems excessive).

After about 1K KM, there was no real perceivable change in sound, and I wasn't really happy with the output levels. I decided that this exhaust must have more to offer, and I bought an AA x-pipe to replace my OEM pipe with deleted primary cats. The AA pipe comes with 100 cel HFCs and a pair of resonators.

The sound signature changed with the AA pipe. The volume became a little bit louder as well. It's a bit of a higher pitched noise, and almost reminds you of a street bike in a way. But what I really wanted in a Race exhaust was for the noise in the upper RPM range to be more intense, and I wasn't really getting that. I think I drove it for another 500km or so in case there was anything more to gain with the "break in".

Still having the Borla Atak, I decided I'd mount it again, especially since I had added the X-pipe since last using it. Right away, it had exactly the profile I had been chasing after. It's loud but tolerable in the lower RPMs without any annoying drone, and when you're on the throttle, it screams with a lot of intensity, substantially more than any of the other setups. As a DD, it would probably be too loud, but given this is a car for weekends and sunny days, it is perfect for me. The x-pipe smoothed out the tone a little bit, and gave it a bit of a higher pitched and again louder noise, but still very "race car" sounding.

I've spent a lot of time and cash trying differnt setups, and I fell to the impression that Borla doesn't "do" Europoean and so the likes of Eisenmann must be next-level in comparison. But for my personal preference, the Atak is a fantastic exhaust, and I'm officially done with exprimenting with others. The only thing I dislike is that I'm not a fan of the style of tips, but I've got them fairly tucked so that they don't protrude themselves much beyond the bumper.

I just figured I'd share since I spent countless hours reading posts and listening to sound clips trying to find the perfect exhaust. Given the price and build quality of the Atak, it's hard to beat IMO.

[Helmsman]

Great write up! Not surpriced over your findings. Had Atak on and thought the sound/note was really nice and as you said linear volume with throttle. Ended up being a tad loud for me as dd so back to OEM. Never tryed Corsa out no?

Cheers

[850tgul]

Thanks for sharing. In the middle of my exhaust journey with the ATAK right now. I always liked the v8 burble it gave off but was looking for more volume than just the catback offered. Switched over to a Remus race for literally 5 minutes but it was way quieter than the ATAK. Put the Atak back on and installed the Remus h-pipe mid section. This gave me the volume and then some. Sounds like a nascar but its a bit too much at full throttle and for use as my dd. I’m about to put my stock x-pipe back on with secondary cats gutted. Hoping that gives me more volume than just the catback did but with less rasp than the ATAK + Remus h-pipe combo.

[850tgul]

And +1 on the Borla tips. Not a fan. Going to see if they can be swapped out when the car is at the exhaust shop this weekend.

[Blindside_137]

Excellent write up!

For the longest time and after all my YouTube video review, I have been dead set on Eisenmann Race and Challenge sport x pipe.

I still think I will ultimately go that route, but will definitely consider the borla if I'm not pleased. Any video of your current setup?



Edit:
Found Borla + Challenge Sport. This is quite good

[brodiem]

Originally Posted by Blindside_137

Excellent write up!

For the longest time and after all my YouTube video review, I have been dead set on Eisenmann Race and Challenge sport x pipe.

I still think I will ultimately go that route, but will definitely consider the borla if I'm not pleased. Any video of your current setup?



Edit:
Found Borla + Challenge Sport. This is quite good

Yeah I was on the same train of thought, all of the clips with E. Race + Challenge pipe sounded phenomenal and that's what I was after. I obviously ended up with an AA pipe rather than the Challenge, but maybe the Challenge pipe sounds substantially different. But mine didn't seem to have the same character at all. I actually find my current Borla setup to be closer to what I was expecting the E. Race to sound like. Mind you I've never really heard my own car from the outside, so this is all based on what I'm hearing in the cabin. Sorry I don't have any clips at the moment

[acarr6]

I might try the borla. I have your gintani sport which I like, but would prefer less "boom" in the low rpm range.

[lancerr]

Originally Posted by acarr6

I might try the borla. I have your gintani sport which I like, but would prefer less "boom" in the low rpm range.

Excellent writeup.

I'm surprised you didn't try the oem exhaust mod. It is significantly louder on just a 2pipe closure and I would assume even louder on a 4 pipe.

it's a DD but I have a short commute so i can manage.

[mrspecter]

You have the AA signature x pipe with the 100 cel cats right? So when you went from test pipes to x pipe, did the smell get worse? I'm currently on the hunt for a x pipe right now, but I'm pretty worried about the smell, drone and rasp paired with my current MPE exhaust setup.

[omgzirra_exe]

Originally Posted by lancerr

Excellent writeup.

I'm surprised you didn't try the oem exhaust mod. It is significantly louder on just a 2pipe closure and I would assume even louder on a 4 pipe.

it's a DD but I have a short commute so i can manage.

you're just asking for a raspy set up with x pipe on 4 mod.

[brodiem]

Originally Posted by mrspecter

You have the AA signature x pipe with the 100 cel cats right? So when you went from test pipes to x pipe, did the smell get worse? I'm currently on the hunt for a x pipe right now, but I'm pretty worried about the smell, drone and rasp paired with my current MPE exhaust setup.

Yeah it was noticeable but not offensive. With test pipes I couldnt detect any change in smell, and with the 100 cel it was noticeable occasionally, like on startup in the garage or sometimes while idling with windows down, but not while driving...pretty subtle overall.

[akkando]

Originally Posted by lancerr

Excellent writeup.

I'm surprised you didn't try the oem exhaust mod. It is significantly louder on just a 2pipe closure and I would assume even louder on a 4 pipe.

it's a DD but I have a short commute so i can manage.

From inside the car I basically can't tell the difference between oem and 2 pipe OEM mod.

[brodiem]

Originally Posted by acarr6

I might try the borla. I have your gintani sport which I like, but would prefer less "boom" in the low rpm range.

Yeah I know what you mean, it's great when you want to hear it but you can't make it disappear when you don't, I still really liked that low end bass of the Gintani though

[lancerr]

Originally Posted by akkando

From inside the car I basically can't tell the difference between oem and 2 pipe OEM mod.

it's a night and day difference for me. much louder than stock but not obnoxiously so.

[Helmsman]

Originally Posted by lancerr

it's a night and day difference for me. much louder than stock but not obnoxiously so.

Same here, much more noise from the 2 pipe mod also inside compared to OEM.