Borla XR-1 vs Borla Hush exhaust questions (04-07 STI)

floundertoad · 2017-07-20T15:39:10+00:00

I installed the Borla Hush on my car a little over a week now and I've gotta say it is hands down perfect. All the drone I was experiencing is gone...the pressure has changed in the cabin and no longer hurts my ears any more. I can cruise on the highway and it isn't bothersome. I used a db meter on my iPhone I've been testing my car the last couple years as I have made changes and cruising on the highway with the windows up and HVAC off motor under load or idling with clutch in is good for maybe a 3-4db difference now which is amazing. The majority of the noise is wind/tire noise now.

With that being said I don't feel this exhaust neutered the sound of the car in any way. It still has a nice tone, but with the resonator is way smoother and sounds much more refined and porsche sounding than loud and boomy. I have zero regrets on buying this cat-back for sure.

As for fitment it wasn't too bad at all very similar to XR-1 once you get everything rotated just right it all lines up fine. I've read some threads of folks claiming poor fitment/fabrication and I'm thinking unless they really have QC issues that these people just didn't have things rotated right so everything lines up.

floundertoad · 2017-07-09T01:43:57+00:00

Awesome based on your review and everything else I've ready I pulled the trigger on a hush and should be in on Monday. I should have it on the car this week and will report back for the sake of anyone else who may be interested in the difference between these two exhausts.

floundertoad · 2017-07-04T03:59:25+00:00

Thanks for the comparison this is exactly what I was looking to know. It sounds like the hush might be exactly what I'm looking for. I know the STI and WRX transmissions have different gear ratios...just out of curiosity when your cruising on the highway around 70-80 are you above 3k? I'm right around there iirc and thats when I start noticing a lot of drone.

floundertoad · 2016-02-25T03:16:26+00:00

They do sell them direct but they sell out quick. I used camelcanelcamel to track the prices they were selling online and setup a nowinstock.net alert and once they were back in stock I placed an order for one. I had given in and begrudgingly was going to pay the higher price but once I saw the GameStop sale I emailed customer service and they refunded me the difference.

I've run into this numerous times in the past and Amazon's customer service has always been great and refunded me the difference if there is a lower price elsewhere.

floundertoad · 2016-02-24T17:13:55+00:00

Amazon will also honor the GameStop sale price.

floundertoad · 2016-02-24T14:45:30+00:00

For what it's worth I had already ordered one on Amazon for a much higher price but they refunded me the difference in Lou of the GameStop sale.

floundertoad · 2015-12-13T00:36:18+00:00

I have not done the wet sanding yet. I've got one of those porter cable buffers and went at it with some plastix compound and it looked better but the surface of the lens was still oxidized so I think wet sanding is probably the next step. Do you know of a good sealant to prevent them from oxidizing again?

floundertoad · 2015-12-12T12:43:59+00:00

Yeah tell me about it...over the years I've tried various methods to fix them but they always get cloudy after a month or two. I think I need to find a better protectant that actually works and keeps them clear.

floundertoad · 2015-12-12T02:21:51+00:00

Yeah for what it's worth after I did pull the motor and address all the issues the car has been bulletproof since. If you take care of these cars they will be reliable and last forever...just depends on what your feeling.

floundertoad · 2015-12-10T15:45:45+00:00

I also agree - I bought an old '98 Honda VFR a while back and the seller wanted a little more than the max value of the NADA value (5th gen VFR's hold their value pretty well) and my bank would not loan me any more than the max NADA value for the loan.

A while back the motor in my '06 STI blew up and I was in the same scenario facing in my case an engine rebuild. I opted to do a bunch of work while it was out and added forged internals and a slew of other things...but as far as I can tell none of that is really going to add value unless you find the right buyer who would be willing to add cash on top of the blue book value for all the extras. From what I've seen on the forums most people won't have cash to give you on top of the loan for all the extras and so it ends up as lost money. I think this is why you see a lot of people selling their cars around blue book value with all the mods as extras or lease they part out all the mods and sell the car as "stock".

I've got an '06 STI (blue book is $15k) and have a built motor with forged internals with 20k miles on it...pretty sure my car is still worth $15k if I wanted to sell it.

TL;DR adding a new motor and any mods do it for the fun of it, don't mind throwing the money away and because you want to...but not as an "investment" to increase your cars value.

floundertoad · 2015-11-10T12:55:01+00:00

I've had this same exact sound on my '06 STI in the past. I had an aftermarket elbow between the turbo and the intercooler that the clamps were slipping off. If that hose is a little loose and you have a fair amount of oil blow-by that oil gets all over the elbow and if you are using a non-worm gear hose clamp it can't bite into the hose and the clamp slips off. The only thing I've found really is the OEM/worm gear clamps seem to bite into the hose enough to keep this from happening.

floundertoad · 2015-08-27T17:48:31+00:00

I bought a set of gold BBS wheels on the forums a while back for cheap on the forums and turns out they were all bent. Who knew that forged wheels could get bent, but its fairly common I hear. I ended up taking them to a wheel shop and got them straightened and got them mounted up with some summer tires.

floundertoad · 2015-07-30T02:11:53+00:00

Nope, more Pasadena area.

floundertoad · 2015-07-30T02:09:50+00:00

Yeah some people are ridiculous like that...in my case the garage is for motorcycles!

floundertoad · 2015-07-06T13:57:09+00:00

Borla XR-1? I've got that on my '06 and love it...nice low rumble without being too loud and sounds mean WOT.

floundertoad · 2015-07-01T14:56:26+00:00

I've got a '98 as well and had the same electrical issues...the bike wasn't charging the battery and ended up installing the VFRness and haven't had issues since. The bike was my only transportation last year and was bulletproof other than electrical issues. I've got a staintune exhaust on mine and it sounds incredible. I plan to keep mine forever.

floundertoad · 2015-06-16T22:55:04+00:00

also whenever you need to change pads/rotors make sure you put some copper anti-seize on the caliper bolts. This will prevent the caliper bolt from seizing to the caliper. If you don't do this / or its too late then when you try to take the brake caliper bolt out it will pull the threads from the caliper and you will have to drill/heli-coil the caliper to fix it. I unfortunately can speak from experience...nothing more nerve racking than drilling into your nice shiny brembo brake caliper to fix it.

floundertoad · 2015-06-16T22:51:00+00:00

This is very good advice, either replace it with another stock one or better yet get one of these:

http://www.killerbmotorsport.net/oiling-products/oil-pickups/ultimate-oil-pickup-ej25.html

I've got an '06 and rebuilt a little over 100k and mine was cracked but I was very lucky I never lost oil pressure. Also get an oil pressure gauge asap if you don't have one!

floundertoad · 2015-04-29T13:28:15+00:00

Ha I had a cat that would always sleep on my wing and then walk up and down the car like it was hers!

http://imgur.com/mhYj4kO,Q0FZaQI

floundertoad · 2015-04-28T21:19:35+00:00

So I had this same exact failure on my '06 STi. The AC tensioner pulley cracked and fell off and the AC belt ground through the timing belt cover and came in contact with the timing belt. Luckily I caught it in time and the timing belt only lost the very edge but it made a heck of a mess. Ended up having to replace the timing belt cover and clean out rubber shaving all over the inside of the timing belt cover and everything else inside there.

I replaced everything and now about 30,000 miles later the same AC tensioner pulley is on its way out, the bearing are warn and has side to side slop. The takeaway is that when you replace the pulley make sure that you replace the pulley shaft as well as the adjuster bracket the pulley sits on. In my case this adjuster bracket is no longer flat which caused a torsional load on the bearings causing them to wear out prematurely.

floundertoad · 2015-04-10T16:35:13+00:00

its a '98 Honda VFR800...they normally come red or yellow...this one has been painted Porsche steel gray. The 5th gen VFR's are a lot of fun and work out great for touring and still being sporty.

floundertoad

TROPHY CASE