There's an old adage about a dog's bark being worse than his bite, but what if it were the other way around? Such was the case with our 2010 Chevy Camaro SS. We have a supercharged LS3 underhood, but at idle it was barely louder than a Toyota Camry. Mustangs making hundreds of less horsepower sounded like Pro Stockers next to our barely audible Camaro.
Here's the stock stuff that...
Here's the stock stuff that came bolted to the Camaro. Note the factory H-pipe and the resonators just behind the tunnel crossbrace.
Even when we mashed our throttle, the sweet LS3 music trying to emanate from the stock mufflers was stifled and over restrained. We didn't want quiet; we wanted the damn car to sound like a muscle car should. The solution was to call up the folks over at JBA and see what they had cooking. At that time, they were just getting ready to introduce a selection of exhaust goodies to help make new Camaros sound the way God intended: raucous and proud.
Of course we didn't necessarily want our ears to bleed from the noise, so we were happy to find out that JBA had tuned the system to let just the right amount of engine rumblings through to the tailpipes. They also constructed the system so it would be easy to install and not tick off California's smog police. To test out the former claim, we grabbed one of their prototype systems and headed to our tech center for the installation.
Here's the complete exhaust...
Here's the complete exhaust system just for reference. This was shot when we did our Centerforce clutch swap and shows what we're dealing with. For this exercise we would just be addressing the section from the cats rearward. The rest will come later
Check out the size of the...
Check out the size of the Camaro's stock mufflers. This is definitely a case where bigger isn't better. It made our SS too quiet for our taste.
We then dropped the factory...
We then dropped the factory stamped-steel tunnel brace.
We were having a tough time...
We were having a tough time getting the old system off since it couldn't slide back far enough to separate where it was connected to the forward section. Our choices were to either remove the rear valance or break out the saw. Since the stock stuff was going in the dumpster, we chose to just do some surgery.
The massive stock muffler...
The massive stock muffler makes the new stainless JBA muffler look almost tiny. In addition to knocking a few pounds off the Camaro, the new exhaust system should help give the SS a more aggressive muscle car sound. Also note how JBA reversed the direction of the exhaust hangers for easier installation.
The nice thing about the factory...
The nice thing about the factory exhaust is it's all bolted together rather than welded. This made disassembly a snap. First up, we unbolted the mid-pipes from the section containing the catalytic converters.