Apex Exhaust Gutting w/ Pics

After reading several posts regarding gutting your stock Apex exhaust I decided to give it a try. The sled is a 2006 Apex GT (basically stock). Not looking for any HP gains just wanted a little nicer sound w/out dropping a few hundred bucks on an aftermarket exhaust. Since I wasn't able to find any one post with a detailed how to, I figured I'd post a few pics in case anyone was interested.

I performed the work with the exhaust in the sled. I removed the seat and exhaust covers. Then I used a hacksaw to start my cuts on both sides. Once through the metal I used my Sawsall to cut both sides from front to back. Then I took my angle grinder w/ cutoff wheel and started the cut across the back. Once started, I finished it off with the Sawsall again. Obviously a plasma cutter would be nice if you have one. I then folded both layers of muffler skin toward the front to expose the inside of the muffler. Here's what it looks like opened up.

At this point you can decide how much you want to remove from the muffler. Since I live in MI and don't want a ticket I elected to just cut the two crossover pipes out. It sounds like others have removed everything, others just drilled/cut holes in the two baffles. I used my Sawsall again with a long bimetal blade to zip through the pipes. Here's what mine looked like with the crossover pipes cut out.

The crossover pipes actually have a perforated pipe inside of them with a thin layer of fiberglass like a mini glasspack. The cut was a little rough on the inside so I bent the perforated metal over and made sure I had a fairly smooth transition into the pipes and also to ensure the fiberglass didn't fall out. This picture shows the cleaned up end of the cut.

At that point I blew all the metal filings out and bent the two layers of muffler skin back over. A quick weld job with the wire feed and this is the finished product.


I sprayed on a quick coat of VHT high temp paint to keep it from rusting and threw the seat back on. Beginning to end it took 2 hours. I cannot comment on how it sounds while riding yet but on the track stand in the garage it sounds awesome. Not obnoxious but much better than stock. It's not overly loud either. My old SRX with MBRP can was WAY louder and I never had issues with that. Anyway that's my story.

wonder if this will be any faster?

Nice writeup. I'm anxious to know how it sounds in actual riding conditions. Might be something worth trying, as I get tired of the awful drone my Apex gives off at cruising speed.

Nice post and thanks for sharing what you have done. I will be doing mine next. Keep us posted how it sounds while riding.

great post a sound clip would top it off

Yes we need a sound clip !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sound clip at idle and half throttle would be great.

i agree a sound clip would be cool

Nice work I cut open the exhaust on my 04 warrior years ago. The rx1 and apex exhaust look the same once cut open.

THANKS FOR THE WRITE UP I WILL BE DOING THE SAME THIS WEEKEND.

Sound Clip

Okay, I'm not sure if I know how to link to a vid clip but I got a decent short video with my digital camera. It sounds pretty representative but as the RPMs get a little higher it has some distortion due to the crappy mic in my camera. See if this works...

http://s242.photobucket.com/albums/ff250/Stensberg/

If you can't access the page let me know and I'll try again.

BTW - I didn't have my track stand handy so with the high tech 2x10 I was using I only got the rpms up to around 8000 so as to not launch my sled through the back of my garage.

Sounds just like my old Rx1...before I turbo'd it.

that sounds sweet

Sounded great in my opinion! Great thread!

Cobalt

thats how i did my 06 rtx before it even had a mile on it,i did go 1 step farther and cut the cone off of the main exhaust tube and also cut all the extra tubing out that was just adding weight,sounds awesome and the price is right too