Quote: Stainless doesn't have to be heavy gauge thus heavy in weight. My recent stainless tubing made out of wafer thin 314 military grade that I acquired from Burns stainless in California only weighed about 7 Lbs or so over my new aluminum pipes. The Mufflers are another story since the heaviest part of the system is usually the Muffs, that is why I went with aluminum. Keep in mind that the gauge thickness also has a play on the sound decibels of a system. Too thin and you might as have open exhaust. I personally would love to be a little more quite anyway with aluminum to hide the intent of the package. My car already sounded kind of F1 with its X-tube, so no classic Mopar notes on the street.
Yeah, like chromoly you can make stainless a bit thinner, but like you said, then you start hearing more ov the exhaust... and not in a good way. In a thinwall old Hooker headers sort ov way. The systems i've heard that really turn me on are all very stout, and the ONLY place you hear the exhaust is out the tips... so i'll be looking at a penalty for that. Dammit.
If pure speed and stealth were my only criteria, then an aluminum system dumping under the seats or T/A-style would be the ticket. Man you could save a LOT ov weight doing that...
