Presenting the AWE Exhaust Suite for the FK8 Civic Type R. Available now!

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Just ordered my touring edition with triple diamond black tips. I was between this and waiting for the 27WON, and this thread helped in my decision. Super excited to get it installed once it arrives!
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elusiveaura

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Can anyone tell me if this exhausts comes with a new gasket for the front pipe?
 

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elusiveaura

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Is it safe to order the "Partially New" version? I see everything is still new and warrantied except the mid resonator section. Or should I spend the extra $ and get everything brand new.
 

jasonjm

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Is it safe to order the "Partially New" version? I see everything is still new and warrantied except the mid resonator section. Or should I spend the extra $ and get everything brand new.
I say save a bit of coin and get the partially new.
Use that savings for a catch can. ;-)
 
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Josh/AWE

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Is it safe to order the "Partially New" version? I see everything is still new and warrantied except the mid resonator section. Or should I spend the extra $ and get everything brand new.
Yep, completely safe. That res just has a few miles on it, that's all. Good thing, IMO, as it's closer to that full break in point :)
 


JSmoothBui

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anyone has touring version that can comment on drone?
thanks
I posted my catless with touring earlier , it does annoyingly drone. However I did ride in the AWE Type R with stock DP and touring AWE, and no drone with that.

Switching to catted dp within the upcoming weeks and will be making another video with catted dp + touring
 
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remc86007

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I installed my touring exhaust yesterday. I was going to write a review last night, but I'm glad I waited to today as several things have happened with 100 miles of driving today. I'll try to make this as honest as possible, and I apologize for how wordy it will be.

First, a couple of disclaimers. (Skip the next block of text if you just want my review thus far).

I. This experience has convinced me that watching Youtube videos to try to hear what an exhaust will sound like is a waste of time. While I'll admit that I picked this exhaust because of the videos AWE put up and the great videos that Pawinning did of Eddy's car; the sound you hear in videos is just nothing like what an aftermarket exhaust sounds like in real life. I been putting aftermarket parts on Honda's for 11 years now, but I've never upgraded an exhaust, so this whole experience is new to me. I suspect the massive discrepancy in sound from video to real life is because of the following: (1) The microphones that people use to record the exhausts are not designed to record even frequency response low enough (the video formats supported by Youtube may not go low enough either). (2) The microphone position is often somewhere other than the driver or passenger headrest giving you an idea of something, but not what you hear when you drive (there are very few binaural audio recordings of aftermarket exhausts, and I'm not convinced the mics used in those setups are sufficient--see point (1)). (3) The speakers and headphones that 95% of people use to playback the recorded exhaust noise cannot produce much below 40hz. (4) The speakers and headphones used by 99% of people cannot produce anywhere close to the actual decibels produced by the real exhaust below 60hz. (5) The position of the speakers or headphones (binaural+headphones excepted) cannot replicate the very directional nature of the real exhaust--half the sound comes through the cabin and half through the windows (if they are down) and those two sounds are very, very different. TLDR -- don't trust a recording of an exhaust; it will sound nothing like it in real life. If at all possible, listen to an exhaust in real life and decide if you like it or not.

II. If you want a car that sounds like a V6, V8, V10, or V12; buy one of those, not an exhaust. I think this warning is particularly important here, given that the CTR has attracted quite a few people that have never owned a Honda before. I am thankful for AWE doing the best they could do with a bad situaton. I think it is very telling that Honda made the stock exhaust silent. They probably couldn't come up with any sound they thought would be universally accepted. It is hard to make a 2.0 liter 4 cyl sound great. It is damn near impossible to make a turbo charged 4cyl sound great. As has been said many times over; the k20c1 just does not have a good exhaust sound. AWE really made lemonade out of lemons here.

Shipping, packaging, etc. - All great. The box that it comes in is massive.

Part quality - The pipes look like they are good quality, the seal/clamp things seem great, and the black tips are incredibly beautiful. One minor complaint: the welds aren't pretty; I don't care that they don't look good, but I do care that there was a decent amount of excess welding (metal?) buildup on the inside of the downpipe side flange on the front pipe. (Enough that I thought it would decrease exhaust flow). I was able to grind it all off with a rotary grinder. I know this exhaust is on the cheaper side, but still; it would be nice not to see stuff like that.

Install - This was way easier than I thought it would be, but took longer too. My friend (who is an engineer and has a pretty good amount of mechanic experience) helped me. It took the two of us 4 hours. That included an inordinately long time spent getting the back tires squarely on ramps, and jacking the front up as high as the jack stands would go and then putting in secondary jacks on wood to make us feel safe.

We sprayed PB blaster on the bolts while they were hot and all of them came out on the first try with a small wrench. I was shocked. Benefits of a new car I guess?

We tried for all of a minute before we gave up and drove to the store and bought an exhaust hanger removal tool. Trust me, it helps immensely. The exhaust hangers on the CTR are new and very strong.

I didn't realize this prior to taking it off, but the entire stock exhaust from the front pipe back is one solid piece. Make sure you have a plan to deal with the 9ft+ part you are about to take off. We used a truck to get it back to my house.

Maybe if I read the instructions more closely I would have realized that there are TWO DIFFERENT TYPES OF CLAMPS. Do not be an idiot like me and realize as you are tightening the tips that you have the clamps in the wrong spot and have to take down the mid pipe to correct it.

I also think they should put in the instructions to bend up the front of the front heat shield while you have it off the car. There is no way we could find to make the new front pipe not touch it if you don't bend it. There is nothing in the way of bending it, so it's not a big deal.

No single part of the install was difficult, although I wouldn't want to attempt it by myself; four hands made things easy.


Post-install experience - The first startup was pretty awesome. The noise this exhaust makes while cold or hot idling is great considering its a 2.0L turbo. I drove it home and parked it because I was exhausted (pun intended) and it was pouring down rain. My first impression of the sound without any break in: kind of harsh, not very pleasing to listen to in the cabin, but not overly loud either. I went to bed glad that the install went well, but a little underwhelmed about the sound.

The initial sound (break in is real) - The next morning I got in the car, started it up, pointed out to my wife how wonderful the idle sound was outside the car, got in and experienced the same, somewhat underwhelming sound (windows up again because rain). I won't go into too much detail about what the non-broken in sound is like because it really doesn't matter. Suffice it to say, the new exhaust was really hard to deal with between 2k and 3k. Don't worry, it gets better.

The real sound - After my first 30 minutes driving, I could tell it sounded ever so slightly different than when I started. I took that as a really good sign and spent most of the rest of the day driving (and adjusting) the exhaust. 60 minutes in I heard my first rattle. This one was really bad; I took it back to the garage, put it the ramp + jackstands and realized that somehow (maybe the exhaust hangers settling, maybe my incompetence when installing) the mid pipe was touching the subframe. I loosened the clamps, turned the mid pipe a bit, and thought I had fixed it. 45 minutes more of driving and a new rattle develops. This one was caused by the rear 180 resonator part being forced upwards slightly by the newly adjusted mid pipe causing it to just barely touch a low hanging part of the heat shield. The heat shield was easily bent to stay out of the way. I then continued driving for another couple hours. I drove hard, regularly pushing the AFR as low as possible to get as much carbon and heat on the new exhaust as possible. The sound kept getting better and better. I thought I was dreaming or fooling myself into thinking it was sounding better than it was. Having now completed a couple hundred (hard) miles with it, I can confidently say it sounds really, really good and it seems to just continue to get better. The sound is getting deeper, with fewer annoying mid-frequencies and slightly more muffled.

Sound description by RPM -

1k to 2k - Sounds great. Nice deep tone. As good as a 2.0L can sound down there.
2k to 2.8k - This is the worst range. Before break in, this range sounded awful. After break in it is livable, and much quieter than before, but still not good sounding. There are just a lot of resonate mid frequencies that echo through the cabin in this range, and I can't imagine having the track version since this is what the touring version sounds like.
2.8k - 3.5k - This range is noticeably quieter. Maybe this is the 180 resonator doing its thing? This is a very good thing, because it makes 6th gear cruising at 70 and above very easy on the ears.
3.5k to 5.5k - This is the best range by far. In this range, the tone is beautiful and sounds like a 4 cyl sports car should sound. If Honda could have made a stock exhaust that sounded like this in this range but was quiet below, I'm sure they would have.
5.5k to redline - Somewhere between 5.5k and 6k the exhaust basically falls silent (at least to my ears). I think it is a combination of the engine and intake noise overtaking it and the frequency range getting high enough that it blends in. While this is slightly disappointing that it trails off up there, it's okay because everything else going on between 6k and redline a full throttle is incredible and as soon as you shift you are back in the meat of the exhaust sound.

Overall sound impression - surprisingly deep, very refined (after break in), plenty loud for me and thankfully much quieter than I feared it would be (this won't rouse the cops miles before you get there), somewhat poppy/burbly off throttle, no fart noises, beautiful idle, louder through the cabin than expected but fine, sounds even better with the windows down.

I am still getting some new interior rattles, but that might be related to components of my water injection setup, so until I track that down, I'm not confident others will experience it.

If anybody has any questions about the exhaust or its sound please ask; I think descriptions of exhausts are the best way to evaluate them without hearing them in person.
 

elusiveaura

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Damn, this sounds a lot different than most reviews lol. I ordered this exhaust Saturday. Hoping yours was just a bad luck of the draw type thing with the rattles and sound. Glad the break in sound part is starting to improve. . I agree with the welds. Idk why they look so bad. Hopefully I won’t experience the same issues you did. Hope yours sorts itself out.

Your part about the RPM range of 2-2.8k worries me. Everyone does have different hearing and I haven’t heard the touring have this complaint from other users so hopefully it’s just a break in thing.
 
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tinyman392

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Damn, this sounds a lot different than most reviews lol. I ordered this exhaust Saturday. Hoping yours was just a bad luck of the draw type thing with the rattles and sound. Glad the break in sound part is starting to improve. . I agree with the welds. Idk why they look so bad. Hopefully I won’t experience the same issues you did. Hope yours sorts itself out.

Your part about the RPM range of 2-2.8k worries me. Everyone does have different hearing and I haven’t heard the touring have this complaint from other users so hopefully it’s just a break in thing.
I know some users with the track setups have the drone at 2-2.8k that clears up around 3k as well. Though they quoted 2100-2500 RPM when not under load. I wouldn't doubt that the touring edition might actually cut this down a bit, but it may not be enough for @remc86007. It might also go away as all the parts settle down with further break in?
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