[Hoops]

I was/am currently in the market to buy an aftermarket exhaust for my E46 M3 CSL and was/am considering either a SuperSprint or Gruppe M silencer. A few years ago i got stung buying what i thought was a genuine Gruppe second hand and paid almost £1,000 for. It looked and sounded great but definitely restricted power some how and so i removed it. When i tried to sell it on i was told by a number of potential buyers that they believed it to be fake. I eventually sold it for a lot less money than i bought it for and had to state that i couldnt prove its authenticity. I now own another CSL and have enquired about a few Gruppes for sale and cant believe how many fakes there are on the market. No-one seems to have bought new and so no-one has any proof of receipt or authenticity. I dont necessarily see this as a major problem IF the potential buyer is told that the item for sale may be a fake/copy/replica - because even the fakes sound and look great. But why would anyone pay upwards of £800 for a fake??? Especially when i believe it may restrict power and certainly you will have NO warranty or any comebacks if it falls apart or fails in anyway etc - thats potentially a lot of money to just throw away.
Anyway - i was enquiring about yet another Gruppe for sale recently and decided to do some proper research on them. I got a direct contact for Gruppe Japan where all items originate from - and spoke to a guy called Hoya. He told me to forward him pictures of the so-called Gruppe to him and he would authenticate it for me. I heard back from him this morning. The Gruppe was indeed a fake. I cant attach his email on here as i dont know how to but the main basis for his assertion that it was a fake was the plaque serial number 05-0116. I have noticed this before and thought it was odd that almost every Gruppe ive ever seen has this very same number stamped on them. 05-0116 is a fake plaque and fake serial number. If you own a Gruppe and cant prove its authenticity and/or bought it second hand then check the serial number. The other way of checking its authenticity is by looking at the welds. The fakes do have decent welds on them but if you compare them to a picture of a genuine Gruppe the difference is clear. Go to the Gruppe website and download a pic of a genuine Gruppe exhaust.
As i said - i dont see this as a problem IF when selling the exhaust a seller clearly states that they have no way of proving if its genuine or not - at the end of the day Caveat Emptor - but i certainly dont think anyone should be paying £800 for something thats fake and you have no comebacks on if it breaks of fails.
If anyone has concerns about a Gruppe they either own or are about to buy then contact Manubu Hoya direct and he will confirm either way. His email address is: info@gruppem.co.jp
Out of interest - i recently heard a soundbite of a Gruppe M on the new E92 M3 and put in simple terms...... OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!! It will probably cost the earth but if i owned an E92 M3 it would have to be in my letter to Santa this year. Have you been a good boy this year Paulie!!!???

[mikem]

I understand how frustrating it can be when your looking to buy a genuine piece.

At the end of the day `tho, if the copy is well made and made from the same quality Titanium and your happy with the way it looks (neatness of welds etc) who cares ?

Titanium is around 5 times the price of S/S so even at £800 for a "copy" its relatively cheap (new S/Steel Gruppe M copies are sold on Ebay for £400+).

I`m switching back to my stock rear box today (though I do have De-cat pipes and a straight through centre section) as I`m fed up of all the attention the noise creates, the GruppeM is even worse (especially with less sound proofing in the CSL), even with std cats/centre box. Honestly Steve, you`ll soon get tired of it

[Hoops]

Bloody hell Mike - youre up early too!!! Dont tell me you also have an 18 month old baby that wont sleep!!!???
I hear what you are saying about the fakes and fact they are titanium - but surely if they are fakes then theres every possibility that its not properly manufactured in some other way?? Silly question - but can you get fake or inferior quality titanium??? Also - do you also run an E46 M3 or CSL too then??

[aut0sh0cker]

Originally Posted by bmwbailey

Bloody hell Mike - youre up early too!!! Dont tell me you also have an 18 month old baby that wont sleep!!!???
I hear what you are saying about the fakes and fact they are titanium - but surely if they are fakes then theres every possibility that its not properly manufactured in some other way?? Silly question - but can you get fake or inferior quality titanium??? Also - do you also run an E46 M3 or CSL too then??

You can get titanium with impurities in it, but the bigger issue is the welding process. For instance, Ti can be welded in any environment, but it will be structurally weak if there is oxygen present. What this means is that for a quality piece, the Ti must be welded in either an argon environment, or in a vacuum. This process is what drives the cost of welded Ti parts up, rather than the cost of the raw Ti itself.

Ti = Titanium

[Hoops]

Great info, thanks auto.

[mikem]

Originally Posted by bmwbailey

Bloody hell Mike - youre up early too!!! Dont tell me you also have an 18 month old baby that wont sleep!!!???
I hear what you are saying about the fakes and fact they are titanium - but surely if they are fakes then theres every possibility that its not properly manufactured in some other way?? Silly question - but can you get fake or inferior quality titanium??? Also - do you also run an E46 M3 or CSL too then??

Early start to get work done before getting the exhaust switched back Steve, Autoshocker is spot on with what he`s written. I have a supercharged E46 M3 as well as the Mondeo. A lot is written and claimed with regards to performance and figures as you know. I don`t really know whats true and whats not. An exhaust manufacturer may claim an extra 10hp or so but if that gain is only at a certain point in the rev range, is it better ? I`m back to my standard back box now and no cats but can`t really say wether its quicker or slower but it definately feels different but again not sure wether its better good or better worse.

[Hoops]

Mike - did you have a Gruppe back box on before then or some other make???

[mikem]

Originally Posted by bmwbailey

Mike - did you have a Gruppe back box on before then or some other make???

I had an AC Schnitzer back box on before, the guy I bought it off had replaced it with a GruppeM. When I collected it he let me listen to the GruppeM, and its rediculous, it lasted 1 week before he took it off. You`ll struggle to get on a trackday too. Even with stock cats and mid section, you`ll be around 100 dB. My advice would be to grab a S/sprint racing back box if you want to save weight or Eisenmann if your after the sound.

[booforty]

lol I'm not made of money you know!! Unless I could earn some extra cash on the side fluffing?

[mikem]

Does this sound too loud ?

[Hoops]

Paul - that E92 M3 sounded awsome on fly-by!!!
Mike - sounded a bit like a tractor to be honest matey!! Bit deceiving being inside a garage but yes it did sound pretty raucous to me!!

[mikem]

Originally Posted by bmwbailey

Mike - sounded a bit like a tractor to be honest matey!! Bit deceiving being inside a garage but yes it did sound pretty raucous to me!!

LOL, theres no exhaust at all in that video. The Gruppe M is a tiny bit quieter than that and a tiny bit more tuneful.

[booforty]

Better save my pennies doing some fluffing then!

[Hoops]

Paulie - theres a job waiting for you and Carlos any time bruv!!!!

[booforty]

What equipment do I need, some feathers or something?

[Hoops]

Just a greasy palm!!!

[Imran@Evolve]

We had an exhaust developed a while ago for the E46 M3 which is quite nice.





We gave it to Charlie at Surrey Rolling Road to test on his E46 M3 to get an independant verificiation done on power gains.



As you can see it has gained about 10 BHP and 10 Ft/lbs torque through a lot of the rev range.

Here is a video

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It also weighs in at about half of the original system.

Here is a review that Charlie did for Pistonheads.

"Ph’er Vixpy1 Tests the Evolve performance exhaust for the E46 M3.

We are often testing various performance parts, remaps etc for various companies but they are always on the car the company supplies, but since its always on the companies supplied car, once the dyno graphs are done and they leave, our part in the test process is over.

So when Imran at Evolve Automotive in Luton approached me at a PH event and told me he had a new exhaust back box for the BMW E46 M3 but did not have an available car, and would I like to test the exhaust on my car and provide an independent before and after test, and also give my views on the product, I jumped at the chance!

Many performance parts are available for BMW M cars, and I’m going to be controversial here, a fair percentage of them do absolutely nothing at all for the performance. Many sports exhausts and filters do nothing other than make a nice noise and in the case of oiled air filters, wreck the air flow meter.
Which is fine if that’s all you want, but if you pay for a product which promises performance gains then that is what you should get.
Time and time again we have done BMW M cars with various remaps, filters, back boxes etc which have been really very disappointing. Not knocking every mod for sale out there, because some remaps, back boxes etc do work. Its just a very hard engine to get more power out of (Well, BMW managed 338bhp out of 3.2 Litres, which is impressive in itself.)

So, with this in mind I was pretty skeptical of this exhaust. The manufacturers claimed it made a performance increase, how much they wouldn’t say. Personally since the M3 is my every day car and the one car I promised myself would not end up modified. I would be happy with just hearing that glorious straight six’s engine note sing out that little bit louder, sod it if it didn’t give an increase in power.


The Test

The Back box itself is very nice and shiny, with 4 slightly bigger than standard tips, not too big mind!


For the test to be as complete as possible, I decided to do the before and after tests on the same day, pref within and hour of each other. With this in mind I stuck the car on the dyno one morning and got my before graph.

So, 331bhp, after 80,000 miles my car has lost 7 of its horses, I can live with that!

The exhaust fitting!

I think the words are, ‘could not have fitted better’, other than having to drill out the bolts on the original exhaust clamps due to them snapping (thanks BMW) the job was about as simple as it couple have been. The mechanic commented on the quality of the welds on the new back box as well, very good he said. It was also noted how it took 2 of us to lift the old back box off and only one of us to lift the new one up to the car, All good so far!

Once fitted, the car was fired up, the idle is fairly quiet but burbles nicely, and blipping the throttle gave a nice rasp, also produced a nice smile on my face! Drove the car out of the estate onto the test route, putting ones foot down resulted in a glorious sound, second gear round to 8000rpm, bang as the gearbox pops in 3rd, round to 8000rpm, bang into 4th. I could get used to this sound! More road testing later, right now.. back on the dyno!.

The result

And here we have it, I was quite frankly a bit gob smacked, a performance back box that actually seems to work. A peak rise of 6 bhp, but look at that gain from 3500 upwards, in one place a gain of 10bhp is seen. Very impressive.

Road test

Out onto the road again now, I already know that under full throttle it sounds fantastic, what interests me now is how it copes with normal driving. First test is a gentle drive down a private motorway in another country at 80mph in 6th. I could detect only marginally more noise than the standard exhaust while cruising, and no boom.

Driving through town did throw up one slight problem, and that’s a resonance at between 1 and 2.5L revs when the engine is under load. To be fair the standard exhaust does it also, its just a bit louder with this exhaust. Its certainly not a show stopper, in any case, the M3 cannot pull the skin off a cat at those rpm so I seldom drive there.

So, overall, very impressive, so impressive in fact I’ve rung Imran and told him he can’t have it back! So much for not modifying the daily driver, supercharger anyone?"

[Hoops]

How much is this exhaust Imran??

[piston-pirates]

Looks like a bit of an Ebay job.....

Polishing the complete exhaust definitely gives the "Made In China" look.

Who makes the exhaust and where is it produced?

[Imran@Evolve]

Originally Posted by bmwbailey

How much is this exhaust Imran??

RRP is £999 inc VAT Steve.

[Imran@Evolve]

[QUOTE=piston-pirates;3673301

Looks like a bit of an Ebay job.....

Polishing the complete exhaust definitely gives the "Made In China" look.

Who makes the exhaust and where is it produced?[/QUOTE]

It is not produced in China and even if it was the quality, fitment and independant results of the exhaust speak for themselves. Who makes it and where it is produced is for us to know

Ask Cargraphic who and where they make their Porsche exhausts...not in Germany but that doesn't mean they don't have an excellent product.

I see you have lots of parts from Racing Dynamics on your car so you should know Federico - give him my regards.

If I have time later I'll play a little game in the OT section. I'll post a picture of a carbon intake we bought lots of and we can try and guess which well known manufacturer makes it. I would take the badge off it to hide the identity but it fell off all by its self with no help

BTW I love RD wheels - please post some pics of your car, I bet it looks very good.

[piston-pirates]

I wasn't trying to be smart ass....Its fair enough you don't want to disclose your manufacturers details.

But do you not agree that the complete polished look gives it the Ebay look? Just my opinion....but it might be worth considering if you produce more?

I know Federico but I mainly deal with my friend Ryan who works for Racing Dynamics S.p.A. in the Californian RDSport headquarters. I travel a lot for work so I am currently not at home to get any photos of my car, i'm trying to get my brother off his lazy arse to take my car for a clean and take some photos to email to me.....

I'll upload them as soon as he does!