Not a better feeling than having the hottest car in the shop and then having that sweet sweet sound eminating from her and the topper is having everyone crowd around to take a look, ask questions and then have them say how sweet a ride you have.
LOL! Yep, same situation here. We fired it up while still on the lift and it got a LOT of attention. The 40-50 feet I drove in the parking lot when moving it out of the bay (to park it before going into the office to settle the bill) was awesome, it sounded so ready-to-explode.
As I said, with some time and mileage, the piping will get a nice carbon coating on it and the tone/volume will change slightly. The only caveat for northern climates is that on a really frozen morning, the MDS growl can get REALLY loud. Not painfully droning loud, but it'll really sound like a GM 2.8 or 3.1 liter V6 with a bad muffler.
By cold, I'm talking 0 F or colder. But if my wife hasn't complained then it must be manageable.
Last night, I read the original post from 2006 about this mod. Listened to a bunch of audio clips as well. It just sounds too good to be true, but all reports, including this one, seem to support that it turns out well. No drone, not too loud, just brings out the"true" Hemi sound, like it should have been. I am so conflicted over this. It just does not seem right to rip out a sizeable piece of OEM exhaust, but...boy I am tempted!
That stuff about "true hemi sound" is kind of funny, I guess the "true" sound of any engine would be with no exhaust piping at all! LOL! Any piping will shape or attenuate the sound. I prefer to describe this mod as "the Daytona exhaust tone with the volume turned up to 11". That's why the change wasn't as dramatic for me as for the owner of a non-R&T Hemi. Likewise, R&T owners will still experience a big change, but relatively speaking the Daytonas see the least amount of change after this mod.
So for a non R&T Hemi owner... WOW! I can imagine the sheer mind-blowing change that this will be! I imagine (after hearing a non-R&T exhaust yesterday morning) that it will be like buying a brand new musclecar.
If you're an enthusiast driver who likes a muscular exhaust note with a nice bark to it, this is your mod, what are you waiting for?
If you prefer a more refined "round" mellow sound, look for Magnaflow or similar because they tend to attenuate the higher frequencies which contribute to the raspiness of the Hemi's exhaust path.
Have someone start your car while you listen closely at your exhaust pipes. You will probably hear a sort of muted "huffle fluffle" sound as the engine drops to idle after the initial surge at startup. On a Daytona this is very prominent. With this mod, it can sometimes be confused with a rattle. It's the tradeoff of having no muffling element left in the exhaust path after this mod. But hey, some cars (Mustangs?) actually go for this kind of sound straight from the factory, so chances are it won't be considered annoying.
