FR500 Exhaust?

[Rwick7]

Anyone got it? How's it sound? As good of power gains as the other catbacks?

 

[01blkcovert]

I been in my friends car who has the FR500. Very quiet until you get on it. He's happy.

 

[CWCobra]

I put one on my '03. Ran it for a week, about 400 miles. Did NOT like it. No improvement in sound; no SOTP increase in performance. VERY annoying drone at 2,000 rpms. Tips were plain, not shiny like the stock tips. I put the stock back on, and sold the POS FR-500. Others disagree, and that's OK. Just depends on what you are looking for. I wanted louder V-8 sound, and hopefully some SOTP grunt. The FR-500 gave me neither. Plus, it's 'spensive at $600 or so.
Peace,
CW

 

[Rwick7]

That's all I needed to hear...for that price I guess Bassani is the way to go.

 

[Fred G]

I have the FR500 and it’s OK. I picked up about 12 HP over baseline dyno pulls of 389 to 401.4 and picked up 1 ft lb of torque cold and lost 1 hot. To be honest, I’m not sure if it’s worth the money, though. True, it’s stainless, and sits up very nicely under the car, but there’s something about it that I’m not so sure about, just can’t put my finger on. I supposed I could have gone for the Mac at almost half the price, but I didn’t. To me the tips look the same as stock. They are polished, but I feel the gauge of the tubing could be thicker to give them a more substantial look, like the Bassani or Borla. I think they all have some kind of drone, somewhere along the line. These do drone at about 2000 rpm. For normal driving they are not much louder than stock, which is something that I wanted, or at least thought I did. At WOT they sound no different than anything else….loud! We held our Long Island SVTOA Dyno Day yesterday at Mustang Magic, so I got a chance to listen to all brands. Like I said, at WOT, they all bark about the same. I would say, for the money, you can’t beat the Mac set up. If you must have stainless, take at look at the Magna Flows first. If you are contemplating a pulley (and chip) for the future, and feel you must change the factory exhaust, look for a used 01 set up and hold off buying new for now. It’s beginning to look like the 3” exhaust is making more torque than the 21/2” at this point on cars with pulleys and chips.….(no flames please…..only reporting what the dyno says), so you may want to put a major expense on hold for a while. I may go that rout in which case my FR500 will be for sale. Every day we’re learning more and more about how to get the most out of these monsters. Personally, I think I may have jumped the gun a little on the FR500, considering the cost.
Hopes this helps a little.
Fred