I’ve been living with the Shadowman exhaust for a few weeks now and feel I can now give a decent review.
I have done the progression from x-pipe to Stainless Works headers with mini cats and now Shadowman’s system.
From an install standpoint the Shadowman system is a piece of cake! Much easier than the Stainless Works to install and especially adjust. There are no slip fits on this setup all of the system fits as the oem system. Shadowman as with everything he does supplies all hardware necessary for the install. No running down to the store to pick up any left out pieces. He is also always available for a little advice or hand holding when needed!
From an aesthetic standpoint all pieces supplied are truly jewel like. From the ARP fasteners, clean tube bends, welds, flanges and the super clean mating of the tube to the flange. These cross the line becoming a work of art. Installed on the car anyone can easily see that these are a quality piece, they just fit and work together so well. It is truly an oem appearing shorty header.
The practical side for those of us living in California these are a much simpler setup when smog test time rolls around. Just pull the muffler from the shorty header flange, two bolts the same as oem, remove the two from the oem cross brace and out they come. Put on your stock cats and tail pipe of your choice and you’re good to go.
The sound. If you are familiar with Flowmasters you have a decent idea as to what you’ll get. Compared to the Stainless works system this is more of a deeper sound. Not as raspy. It is much quieter in the cabin with NO drone as compared to the Stainless works. Last year driving to the rally I wore noise-canceling headphones to keep me sane and with the SW system. This system you can actually hear the radio when set to a reasonable level if you wish or even converse when running at highway speed. Outside of the cabin the system will still bark, just in a deeper growl than the SW system. It is still very impressive sounding just more of a big purposeful sound. She still makes all the right noises when accelerating, decelerating and when blipping the throttle heal and toeing. Just a bit more subdued.
All in all I’m extremely impressed with Shadowman’s effort and very happy to be living with it so much so that I will be removing the Stainless Works setup and installing a Shadowman system on my other GT.
