Longlife Basingstoke doing my Cat delete

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Coggers

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Joined
Nov 17, 2011
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199
Car
C55 AMG
Have just booked the C55 into Longlife Basingstoke for this Saturday to get the Cat and resonator removed. Did a quick run-through over the phone to tell him what I want and he has provisionally quoted saying that it will cost around £100+VAT. When I said that I wouldn't want to travel there just to get a stupidly ramped up quote, he said that it would be £100(+VAT) tops!

Mentioned that I hadn't decided if I wanted 2 pipes ruinning the length of the car like this:

15072011270.jpg


Or the single pipe

a45529a0.jpg



What is everyone's thoughts on the pro's and cons of the 2 pipe system? I'm guessing the 2 pipes are louder as a starting point.

Hoping this will go well. Has anyone been to Longlife Basingstoke before?
 
Are you sure that he is fitting new pipe for £100?

That seems like a very good deal to me. It may be that he is opening the cats and resonator and scooping out the guts before welding back up? This has it's benefits, in that the exhaust looks unchanged.
 
I paid something like £120 to have the centre muffler (resonator) removed on my R129. This was at Longlife in Carshalton, a few years back.

Removing the secondary cats at the same time would be trivial ... just a slightly longer pipe required each side before the 'Y' piece.
 
I even clarified at the end as i was a little surprised. I used the words 'so I want you to cut out the Cat and fit about 2metres of new pipe probably with a Y-piece at one end'

I hope he understood. As I said before, I dot want to travel down there then get an over-inflated quote. I can deal with it going up a little bit of course.

I read someone on this forum had it done by them for £125. Can't remember what thread.
 
Have just booked the C55 into Longlife Basingstoke for this Saturday to get the Cat and resonator removed. Did a quick run-through over the phone to tell him what I want and he has provisionally quoted saying that it will cost around £100+VAT. When I said that I wouldn't want to travel there just to get a stupidly ramped up quote, he said that it would be £100(+VAT) tops!

Mentioned that I hadn't decided if I wanted 2 pipes ruinning the length of the car like this:

15072011270.jpg


Or the single pipe

a45529a0.jpg



What is everyone's thoughts on the pro's and cons of the 2 pipe system? I'm guessing the 2 pipes are louder as a starting point.

Hoping this will go well. Has anyone been to Longlife Basingstoke before?

Hi Coggers,

The difference between the 2 systems is

A). First picture is a "True Dual" X-pipe system. This means that each bank of 4 cylinders has a separate exhaust pipe exit. The X-pipe section in the middle is necessary to balance out the engine. However, some C55 owns in the US do run proper "True-Dual" exhaust systems i.e. with no X-pipe design!!
B). The second picture (my car) is the Y-pipe design. this means that both sides of the engine are joined together at the Y-pipe & run through to the back boxes where they separate again i.e. it's a longer balancing type design.

There are loads of opinions on the US forums as to what is best. In short, you can run a larger single Y-pipe or 2 slightly smaller separate pipes for the X-pipe design. My Y-pipe is 2.5"" all the way along, however another forum member (movie-star) went with an x-pipe & x2 1.5"" pipes.

It might be worth seeing if you can put your car on the same rolling road before & after the work - that way you can accurately see what the BHP gains are.
 
That sounds very cheap!

I am considering the PCS mod later later this week when I take the car in for a service there.

It's considerably more than £100 though. Is there any difference?

I presume this adds no more than a few hp?

Thanks
 
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Power gains will be minimal - it's mostly to improve the sound.
 
That sounds very cheap!

Can anyone explain the differences between the above options, and the de-cat that "just240" has had done by PCS on his C55? I am considering the latter later this week when I take the car in for a service at PCS. Also, I presume the de-cat will only add a few hp rather than anything noticeable real world?
Thanks

I can prove (with before & after rolling road dynos) that the de-catt & resonator delete will add significant power increases to any C55 AMG. My car had only covered c.30k miles when i changed the exhaust but it had, had a recent rebuilt by AMG due to a faulty engine part. The dyno runs showed me 379 before the exhaust was changed (every C55 is slightly different as they are hand built engines & that's exactly why we buy em). After i changed the exhaust i gained c.24-25 BHP + 36-40 Torques. the only other mod i did was changing the air-filters to new "Green performance-Air Filters" (sourced by Olly at PCS).
The chaps that dyno-ed the car said that the exhaust system on AMG Mercedes was the most restrictive system possible. This was partly due to MB wanting to keep the cars extremely quiet & civilized. They changed this approach however with the C63 engines! In short, pound for pound changing the exhaust system over is the cheapest way to add power (& sound) to the C55.
 
I live in Basingstoke and have used these guys for exhaust work on my CLK500, V8 Jeep and V8 X5... They do a top job and the prices are as quoted...

The X5 had its centre box removed and an X pipe made and put in all for 50 quid!!
 
I can prove (with before & after rolling road dynos) that the de-catt & resonator delete will add significant power increases to any C55 AMG.
Was that the same dyno, preferably on the same day? Mind you 24 bhp or so is only a 6% increase, so quite possible I guess.
 
Thanks for the replies. Good to weed some more knowledge out of you guys.
My plan is to go for it, and see what the cost differences between the 2 types are. I love the look of the X-pipe design so that may well win the argument!

I'll post up before, after and hopefully during pictures of the work.
 
Sorry for being dim but is a C55 blown or normally aspirated?
 
I'm so tempted to get the secondary cat delete done on my R129, just to increase the noise a little. It's only the slight uncertainty about future MOTs that stops me.
 
From what I have read, the secondary cat delete makes very little difference to the noise on R129's.
 
Will insurance be effected and will it fail an MOT?
Any exhaust change has to be declared for insurance. Mostly they don't care what mod. has been done, just that it's not standard any more.

A car can be failed on an MOT for being (subjectively) too loud, but I think it would have to be pretty extreme for this to happen.

Removal of all cats would be an MOT fail if the car had cats when new, regardless of whether it met emission levels or not.

Removal of secondary cats is a little less certain ... generally the view seems to be that it will be OK provided it still meets the required emission levels (which it should with just the primary cats).
 
When agreeing a price for works with a Garage some miles away always ask for an email conformation especialy when there is possible ambiguity about what may be involved.

My guess is the OP's Garage has quoted for butchering the existing exhaust and not for the supply and fabrication of another 2m of pipeing.
 
My guess is the OP's Garage has quoted for butchering the existing exhaust and not for the supply and fabrication of another 2m of pipeing.

S/S pipe isn't expensive in the quantities that Longlife buy. You are paying for the fitter's time, mostly. As mentioned, the resonator delete on my R129 (which included fabricating a Y pipe ... probably the most complex bit) cost me £129 at Longlife.
 
Removal of all cats would be an MOT fail if the car had cats when new, regardless of whether it met emission levels or not.

So taking out the insides as mentioned before to make it look like it still has cats would pass the mot as the tester would think it has them?
 

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