by Wife's-Solara » Tue Oct 28, 2008 4:19 pm
I don't know about the V6 engines but when I put a cat back exhaust on my tC (same engine as the Solara) I lost torque. Sure it revs higher and gives you a very very low power increase on the high end but when driving under 4,500 rpm the engine feels dead. It feels like I was driving a Civic with no VTec. I also didn't notice an increase in mpg. Infact it actually dropped since I have to rev higher to feel some oomph.
I put the stock exhaust back on and didn't look back.
I'm sure if you have forced induction it'd be a different story but IMO an icrease of about 3hp, drop in mpg, loss of torque isn't worth the $200 - $500 mod.
Besides, a heavy car like the Solara won't really benefit from a 3hp increase. Heavy cars need all the torque they can get.