Bought from Bavarian Autosport, installed at Tim’s Custom Exhaust (Twin Cities)

PREVIOUS ENGINE MODS:

CDV- extreme help with better clutch engagement (for M/T)

AFE Stage 2 – more air, more engine noise in cabin (during 2800+ rpms)

NEW MOD:

Scorpion Exhaust (Wanted more engine noise/response/better flow):

a. Pros

Adds a needed/wanted grunt to the car.
Very subtle back fire (once broken in should sound a lot better; reminds me of the E46 M3’s meisterschaft exhaust).
Moderate performance increase.
Increased engine noise and response for M/T drivers.
Improved flow.

b. Cons

Cutting exhaust since it’s not a cat back (if you have warranty I would suggest getting a cat back): this means from the cats that are located at headers, not the secondary cats.
You feel your car yearning for more; the Germans built a performance engine, but definitely held it back. It’s an engine that had potential, but was told she can’t get anywhere with a flat chest, unlike her N54 sister who had tig ol’bittys’.

2. Recommend to get a throttle tune or Re-Map because you’ll be so frustrated on how the stock ecu maps are holding back the car (if you weren’t already disappointed in the beginning). If you are going to get a re-map make sure you aren’t installing the 330i performance manifold in the near future (< 1 year) since you might have to have it re-mapped again. Also the M-tech rear bumper would match this well.

3. Paths you can take with Scorpion Exhaust

Cut and attach before the secondary cats (you’ll need to cut mid pipe and stock)
Take off whole exhaust and construct piping that will go from scorpion mid-section to headers. (so basically a full catback.)
Only install muffler (for those who want a different performance muffler)
Whatever custom work you want to do?

What to expect:

Overall the exhaust should fit from the muffler towards the mid pipes, however on the stock exhaust the piping with the resonator is slightly dented on the top to prevent the exhaust from pressing on the heat shield that protects the driveshaft. If the exhaust presses on this, you will hear the weights on the drive shaft hit the heat shield. This can be easily fixed in a couple of different ways: 1) denting new exhaust in similar manor as stock exhaust, 2) “shift/dent/move” the heat shield slightly lower so it isn’t coming into contact with the driveshaft, 3) use your judgment on how to approach it, I’m probably making it sound more difficult than it is.