I have a 1993 formula and i'm not sure if i have stock exhaust or not. It has 2 pipes coming out each side(of the backof the car), and it sounds too good to be stock. It doesn't look like i have a cat on it either, any ideas? thx

The stock V8 exhaust on the 93 Formulas and T/A's had a pair of (approx) 2-1/4" diameter pipes on each side. They come from a crossflow muffler with the 2-7/8" imtermediate pipe going into the passenger side of the muffler, and a 2-1/2" exhaust pipe coming out or each side of the crossflow muffler.

A popular replacment was the Borla "adjustable" catback, with a 3" intermediate pipe, an adjustable muffler bypass out the passenger side exhaust and another branch that flowed through the muffler with another exhaust pipe on the drivers side. The Borla had dual square tips on each side. Sound was good, with the adjustable bypass.

This it a Borla..... the stock system would look similar, just with round tips rather than the square ones:

if it's stock the tips will be round and somewhat small.

What does the muffler look like? Some replace just the muffler (I've done this too, replaced my stock with the Spintech).

i also have a '93 Formula and the previous owner gutted out the cat and said that that made the car considerably louder. in doing their job, the cats DO definitely dampen the sound somewhat. i thought the same thing you did when i heard my car for the first time because the stock exhaust on these cars has a reputation of sounding relatively tame. definitely not the case with my car and that's the only thing that was done to it so if none of the above responses make sense to you, that could be it.

actually, i'm replacing the cat as we speak so i can pass inspection since they still do tailpipe tests here in MA on '95 and older cars (until next year - RATS! ). i don't expect it to go back to being as quiet as it was in stock trim since it's a high flow cat with a nice mandrel bent pipe going to the manifolds but i'll still get a sense of what "cat" vs "no cat" sounds like anyway.

i went with the Magnaflow by the way. here it is in case you're interested:

http://www.car-sound.com/02product/display...directfit=93444

good luck,
~frank

just got my car back from the shop with the new Magnaflow Cat w/Y-pipe installed and thought i'd follow up. the car sounds WAY different. it no longer has the deep, gutteral growl it had before. such a bummer. it also feels a bit more sluggish, although since i'm coming from having no cat at all, i rather expected that. and the Magnaflow is a high flow part, so i can only imagine how much more restrictive (and quiet) the stock setup is....

so powerhorse17 my point is this: your car which sounds "too good to be stock" may only have had the cat removed and nothing else done to it based on what i'm experiencing now. boy, this REALLY makes me wish i had the extra cash right now to get the rest of the Magnaflow (cat-back) system put on so my car will go back to sounding as bada$$ as it did before, but that'll have to wait for now. when i finally do, it should be a pretty great performing/sounding setup with mandrel bent, stainless steel pipe and high flow parts from the exhaust manifold all the way out the tail pipes!!!

I have the magnaflow cat-back on my formie. You'll love it, guaranteed. Def sounds bad-a$$. Lol, especially in parking garages or going under overpasses. Although from what I've heard the results on LS1 cars are not as great.