- What's the one thing that everybody wants to do
to their car?
Make it louder, of course.
But, there's so many ways to go about making a car louder.
Well, we're going to take a look at one of those ways today
and we're going to install a set of wireless exhaust cutouts
on my boy Nolan's Mustang, so that he can go
from quiet to riot with the push of a button.
What do you think?
- Sounds pretty good.
- Let's do it. - Yeah.
Money pit, baby.
(thunder cracking) (hip-hop music)
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- Time's ticking. (clock ticking)
The inevitable stride of time keeps going.
- All right Nolan, before we go any further,
let's find out how loud your car is now.
I got a decibel meter.
- Sweet.
- What are you, any guesses?
How many decibels you think you're putting out at idle?
- At idle, probably like 60 decibel at idle.
- That's a good guess.
A stab in the dark, I understand.
- And then like a good revving, maybe like 80.
- You know what?
I bet you're close.
Let's go find out. - Okay.
I have no idea.
Hey Jobe, are you ready? - Yep.
(engine revving)
Oh, pretty quiet.
Okay, now try to hold it at 4,000 RPM.
(engine revving)
- Okay, so she's pretty quiet.
We've got 101 decibels while he's revving it.
So, that's basically our number to beat with the cutouts.
I don't think it's going to be a problem.
I think we're going to make this thing a lot louder.
All right, while Nolan gets the car off the ground,
let's talk about some of your options
for exhaust modifications.
Now first off,
why would you even do an exhaust modification?
Well, now we've been over this stuff before.
We've done a few videos on exhaust stuff.
You can check those out here and here.
But just to quickly cover it, of course,
modifying your exhaust can make it sound better
and it can free up a few extra horsepower.
But, there's a few ways to go about it.
I mean, if you've got a bunch of money,
you can replace your entire exhaust from start to finish.
But, if you've only got a little money,
you can just replace a piece or a part of it.
Like, you can do an axle back or a cat-back.
So, all those mods are cool
but they pretty much leave you with one mode,
and that's loud.
Which is fine for a lot of people and for a lot of cars,
but there are a lot of people out there with daily drivers
that they wish could make more noise,
but they also like being able to cruise comfortably
and quietly.
So, that's where you kind of land
on something like what we've got today,
which is exhaust cutouts.
So, Nolan will be able to hit a button
and make a bunch of noise, and then hit it again
and go back to being quiet without even thinking about it.
It's really convenient.
Now, the cutouts we're going to be putting
on Nolan's car actually come from where I used to work.
So, shouts out to my boys over at ECS Tuning.
Let's go take a look at the cutouts they sent.
(air whooshing)
How's it going, Nolan?
- You want it higher, probably?
- Oh my God, so much higher.
(upbeat music)
All right, so here's what we have.
We've got two cutouts from my boys over at ECS.
They're real nice.
They're made out of stainless and they're vacuum actuated.
So, we're actually going to connect the vacuum
from Nolan's engine to these canisters on the cutouts.
And that's what'll physically open the flaps in here.
But in operation, all Nolan's going to have
to do is click a button on the key fob,
and then that'll trigger a solenoid that sends that vacuum
to the canister and opens or closes the cutout.
So, this is all that's going to be in the car
or on Nolan's key ring.
And then, this is what's going
to be under the car doing the actual cutout work.
So, they're pretty simple.
They just gives the exhaust a path to freedom.
And all we got to do is cut some exhaust out of Nolan's car
and slip these things in.
It should be pretty easy.
- We're going to take our cutouts
and find a place along the exhaust pipe
where these boys will fit.
And then we'll actually measure out
and cut a section of the exhaust out, replace it.
And there you go, now you've got your path
for the exhaust to escape.
- Yo, Nolan.
Quit talking about it and let's come be about it.
- Okay. - All right.
It is time to actually install these things.
So, we're going to do a little divide and conquer setup.
Nolan's going to go under the hood
and work on installing the solenoid for the vacuum.
It should be pretty easy.
And I'm going to go under the car
and actually install the cutouts,
which also should be pretty easy.
- Let's do it. - Cool.
- And, time!
I don't know how to wire things.
(upbeat music)
- Okay, so under the hood, Nolan has basically two jobs.
First off, we need to tee into his vacuum system
in the engine, like we talked about.
The vacuum line's going to have to go back
to the cutouts to actually actuate them.
So, that should be pretty easy.
We've got some Ts that came with the kit
and we just need to physically tee into a vacuum line.
And then, in line in that vacuum line that we tee
out is going to be this solenoid.
It'll go the vacuum from the engine,
and then this will go back to the cutouts.
And then basically, this is what turns on and off
when you hit the button to actually actuate the cutouts.
Now, the thing that triggers this is this.
So, we also have to install this little box
which connects to the solenoid.
And this is our wireless receiver for the key fobs.
So, this just basically recognizes the signal
when Nolan pushes the button.
It takes power from your battery and from your ground.
And then, it sends a signal to this solenoid
which lets vacuum through, which sends it back
to the cutouts, and then they magically open
and then close again when you hit the button.
So, it is really a simple setup,
but there's just a handful of things to do.
All we gotta do is do them.
- All right, where the (beep), there it is.
The vacuum line diameter is much bigger
than our step-down is.
It doesn't even hold in.
One, I already cut this vacuum line,
so this is the one we kind of have to go with.
And there's really not that many options when it comes
to vacuum lines on this engine, which is pretty interesting.
So, we'll just have to go to the Pep Boys down the street
and hopefully get something that works for this.
'Cause as it stands right now, my car is immobile.
All right, while Nolan's working on that,
I'm going to go under here
and mark out what we need to cut out
so we can install the cutouts.
Should be pretty easy,
but we're going to have to figure out how
to stagger them so they both fit in the space we have.
See what we can do.
Okay, so we need to trim on the inside
of these pieces of tape
and just cut out this section right here.
And then, our cutout will replace it
and slip over both ends of the pipe, and that's it.
We just need to do that on both sides.
All right, so there are plenty
of ways that you can cut an exhaust pipe.
You can use a cutoff wheel, a reciprocating saw, a hacksaw.
But, there's also one of these.
This is an exhaust pipe cutter.
Basically, just got a bunch of hardened steel,
real sharp wheels in here.
So, I basically just wrap this around the exhaust pipe
and then clamp it together here at the bottom,
pinch the pliers tight to put pressure on it.
And then, I can just kind of go like this
and it should cut right through.
These are pretty sweet, only like 30 or 40 bucks.
Good!
One section disconnecto.
Decent looking cut, we'll clean her up with a file.
Now I just gotta make this cut
and get this piece out of here.
All right, well it looks like the rear section exhaust
is going to have to come all the way down
to give me enough room to get the the old cutout in between,
which, I mean, makes sense.
But, I was really hoping that I could push this more.
But, I just can't do it.
Okay, well the first one is roughly in place.
We had to tighten some things up
and then hang this section of the exhaust back up.
But, the good news is that it fits.
It's not going to make contact with anything.
And we should have no problem getting our vacuum line routed
to it.
Okay, I think I'm gonna be able to make this work
with a little bit of trimming.
And the other good news is that Nolan actually found
what he needed and he's back now.
- This guy.
Great, and look at that!
It's nice, like that,
this angled a little tee here kind of sets us up
for success, hopefully.
All right, next step,
I'll be connecting the smaller vacuum line
that will feed back to the solenoid where Zach is working.
So, we'll do that.
Here we go.
Just like any other sort of line, you're going to want
to avoid putting this near any really hot surfaces
'cause you don't want to, like, melt a hole
in your vacuum line.
And I'm feeling good today.
Taking off my wheel here just so I can have a better view
of the routing situation.
It's not that big a deal when you've got a nice impact gun.
All right, so as you can see, dangling my little,
my little hose down.
All right, Jobe had a good idea
to route the vacuum lines as close to the, like,
fuel lines as we can just 'cause it's it's already protected
by this little skid plate here.
And I think that's a good idea,
'cause right now how I have it routed is right next
to the exhaust.
So, that's not what we want.
- Okay, well the second one is in place
and I haven't even trimmed it yet.
And it's really not bad.
We are losing probably an inch of ground clearance here,
which I don't really like.
So, I'm going to trim this turndown
so I can rotate this up a little bit more
and save Nolan's ground clearance.
Should be okay.
All right, well I'm going to work
on trimming this turn down.
You want to work on wiring up the solenoid trigger?
- Sure.
- Or finding a place to mount it or any of those things?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do that. - Let's do it.
- Okay. - Let's do it.
(rock music)
- All right, while Zach is finishing up the back end,
we're going to continue up front.
We're going to wire up the antenna box
to the fuse relay here.
Make sure the cable management is done correctly,
'cause this looks really bad right now.
And also, find a place to mount this solenoid.
So, I had the wire routed out in my engine bay.
I was just going to, like, zip tie
to the existing wiring harness.
But, Jobe had a really good point that
that would look like (beep)
So, what I did is undid my cowl here so I'm going
to be able to just hide the wire underneath here.
There's a lot of space.
And just tuck that into there,
and Bob's your uncle, you know?
Now, I have a couple options for mounting the antenna box
onto the shock tower here.
There's already a preexisting hole there
that we could probably riv nut and make work.
But, the holes on the unit itself are actually really small.
So, I don't feel too good about that,
just be kind of weird.
So, the other option is some double-sided tape here.
Just really easy, don't need to cut anything,
don't need to use any tools,
and it'll probably last a long time.
You can either go two ways with double-sided tape.
It'll either last, like, a week
or you will never be able to get it off anything
in your entire life without the aid of solvent.
So, I think that's a pretty decent option.
- All right, well it's still got a little bit of turn down.
Not much, granted.
I'm going to clean that up and then test fit it.
I think she'll fit.
All right, so I'm just test fitting to see
which of these loops best fit on the main power wire.
It looks like the smaller one,
which is the one I wanted to go with anyway.
So, that's good.
So, this will be power,
and then we gotta find a ground somewhere,
and then we'll be good, which is a pretty cool, actually.
This could be a ground right here.
- Yeah, that should be pretty good.
That should be decent on ground clearance
and it comes out nice.
It still turns down pretty well.
It should shoot off of the pipe a little bit
and hit the ground.
Yeah, I think that's gonna be cool.
Let me get this back half in.
- [Nolan] Where's that check valve?
- You know, I want to say it's in this creeper.
(punch landing) Ow!
Wow, (beep)!
I've never been hit in the armpit like that.
I moved it earlier, but I don't remember where.
(upbeat music)
Okay, so I'm just tightening up the clamps
on the cutouts now.
I think I've got them in their final position,
nice and packaged in here.
It is a little tight over here,
so I'm going to keep an eye on that,
make sure that it doesn't make contact when these get hot.
Because obviously, your exhaust gets really hot
when the car is running and because of that, it expands.
So, I'm going to make sure none
of this actually makes contact once it is warm.
But, I think we're going to be okay.
So, I'm just going to tighten these up
and then we just gotta put the vacuum lines
onto the canisters.
Okay, so the cutouts are fully installed.
They're all plumbed up.
And, Nolan's got everything wired under the hood.
So, the install is done.
Now, we just need to get the car off the jack stands
and let this baby sing.
- All right, let's do it.
(car starting)
Want me to try?
- [Zach] Let's flip them puppies open.
Oh yeah!
(engine revving)
That's more like it.
(engine revving)
- Okay, so now that the cutouts are on and working,
let's get some decibel readings
and see how loud things are now.
- Jobe, you ready?
- [Zach] Yes!
Okay, she's open now.
All right, give her some revs.
(engine revving)
All right, now try holding it up 4,000 okay.
(engine revving)
That's good!
Okay well, not like it's a huge surprise,
but we did pick up some decibels across the board.
Picked up about three at idle,
picked up about 15 revving it,
and we picked up about 21 at 4,000 RPMs.
That's a lot of decibels.
And the thing doesn't sound wild.
I think it sounds really good and refined.
But, I also think it's going to sound even better
on the road under some load.
So, let's go drive it.
And God help him if there are any crowds out there.
- Very original.
All right, hopefully we don't scrape it off as we,
which way should we go?
- Scrape it off.
- Let's go that way. - Any way you want.
You know, the ground clearance thing, first off,
it looks like you've got great ground clearance.
We really didn't lose much.
But it's also really close to your axle,
so that you know, anything you hit,
it'll be hitting your tires.
- I'm gonna turn this off real quick so we can talk.
- I love talking over a loud exhaust.
I don't know about you.
All right, let's let this baby sing.
(engine revving)
Well, the Mustang finally sounds like a Mustang.
- It does, it really does!
It sounds awesome. - Do you like it?
- I love it!
It's not, I mean, I'm sure it's obnoxious as hell
on the outside when we did that.
- I don't think obnoxious is the right word.
- But it, like, that's the sound you want
when you have a car like this.
- Yeah, when you have a V8, you should be hearing it.
- Yeah. - And now I'm glad you can.
And it's also nice that you can also not.
- Yeah. - Right?
You know, you can close her and pull into your,
into the home and not wake your neighbors up.
- I would not want to have this all the time,
that's for sure. - Right.
Yeah, and I get that, you know?
Like, it is really nice
to have a car that is just comfortable.
- Yeah.
- Well Nolan, I'm glad the Mustang finally sounds
like a Mustang.
- Yeah.
Thank you. - Yeah.
Well, hey man, anytime.
And also, another thanks
to my friends over at ECS for sending us the cutouts.
- [Nolan] Yeah, definitely. - Big thanks.
Sweet way to get Nolan's Mustang sounding cool.
Also, big thanks to you guys 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 guys next week.
Goodbye! (engine revving)
Oh, you want some?