So ya i was at the track yesterday, having fun till my borla decides to explode from what we believe was a back fire. I was really surprised when i took it off this morning that it was actually fiberglass packed, I'm pretty confident that when i bought it and looked up the specs it said SS packed. The model of this was the borla Turbo XL 40665. So its not their cheap stuff ... this is the one that retails on their site for 206$. Anyways here's the shots of it:

 

Are you sure that's fiberglass and not ceramic? I've read that they use a combination of stainless steel wool and ceramic fabric.

 

From what I found online, the case is SS, not the packing. At least thats how I read it.

~T.J.

http://www.borla.com/products/produc...bo+XL+Mufflers

EDIT: Then again, maybe not. Maybe the above poster is right.

http://www.borla.com/faqs/#11

 

Forgot to mention but what i'll basically be doing is taking all the outside casing off of it, pack the whole thing on the outside with SS wool (I picked up 3 grades coarse number 3, medium number 1, and then a fine on the outside number 00), then i'll be grabing a SS pipe 4" diameter and placing it in there) Should have some stuff done tomorrow I was hoping to get it all done tomorrow but I don't think that will happen. I'll take some pics as I go on

 

I can definatly tell you there no SS thing around the muffler and that its definatly fiberglass, in some ends its all melted and then you can see the loose ends on the other. Also i don't know about that ceramic coating neither didn't see anything in there about that. Maybe Chris will chip in on this too as he was with me when i took it out and i'm sure he'll agree that there was absolutly nothing else in there. When i rip it open tomorrow I'll show you guys.

 

Hmm. Intersting. Get any pictures of that Holley linkage from the carputer yet?

~T.J.

 

ya actually i looked there and i didn't have them .. i had a HD crash not too long ago on it and all the picture that were on there were gone ... .. had lots of them too .

 

Just to update, i've been calling around to order some 4"x19.5"x1/16" tubing to fab up but looks like it will have to wait till tomorrow as i have to order it in, which then i guess i can get my buddy to just laser cut me some circles out of 1/16" steel for the ends. I was going to get the ends cut at and angle to make it look better but after calculating that the angle is only 7 degrees its not really worth the extra headache i think.

The gutting will start later on today and I should have the SS wool all wrapped around it by tonight. I jsut need to get some wires to roll them over the ss wool or maybe if I just tape them and then just let the tape burn up on the first run then freeing all the ss wool. That might actually work best

 

Alright so i took the thing apart today. Here's some close up shot of the stuff and it being dissassembled. As you can tell there actually is some SS packing on the inner tube, why its all sitting at one end though beats me. When I redo it just by looking at this i'll probably use a wire to coil all the wool together and to keep it in place.

 

more pics with the whole casing off

 

how old is this muffler? Maybe it's still under warranty.

 

Was the SS wool on the 'inlet' side? Might make sense if it was..higher temperatures there and they can say it is 'SS packed'. Even though it isn't totally SS packed.

Perhaps they figure that the exhaust gases cool enough past that point to allow for FG packing for the rest of the muffler.

 

Wow, death of a Borla. Cool!

I wonder how much better the Pro XS series are compared to the older Turbo models?

I guess this means a Borla probably shouldn't be used as a presilencer in the cat location, huh? Well, not necessarily with a turbo, as some 2nd gen guys are having success with them there, but better stick with a presilencer if you're NA.

 

the ss wool was actually at the outlet side of my setup. and looks like it was just pushed there by exhaust gasses and not purposely left there.

Anyways i've begun doing the muffler my way right now. I've used up 10 pads of the coarse stuff and wrapped it around, then used up another 10 pads of the medium stuff. So so far I've only got about 9$ into it for using up 2 bags. I might be ditching the fine stuff as one of my buddies that is cutting me those end plates said he had some furnace stuff at work that even at 2500F you can touch the surrounding steel and it just feels warm. He said he had previously tried to torch the thing and it would just stay there, so i think that might be a better thing to put in as a last layer to prevent as much heat escaping from it as possible. I have packed the things pretty good so far though. When i did the coarse stuff, i took some tape and rolled the whole thing in there tightly with tape so that it can fit in as much as possible, same goes for when i did the medium. I have a couple of shots of it. Once i get that insulation stuff though i'll probably be taping it too to make it fit easier in the tubing and then i'll wrap everything up with some cable/ wiring to prevent it from being pushed to the one end ... not that i think it would but just as a precaution.

Can't wait to reinstall it and see how it sounds ... might sound better than my borla Also borla emailed me back to list how things were setup on the car and what other mods were on there too. So i'll see what they respond tonight or tomorrow.

 

the used to come with a million mile warranty, i blew about 5 of them before getting rid of it.. borla+rotary=death
nice job!!

 

borla is the ****

 

I love Borla!

 

Yes! Gooood man. Borla XR-1 all day.

 

Haven't had an XR-1. I hear they are very good. I run the ProXS in the precat position. Used to have the Mazdaspeed Borla That had the best sound I have heard from a 12a.

 

I spoke with a guy who said he has used the Borla XR-1 on about 8 differnet first gens customer owned through him and they all loved it.

 

if all goes well i should have all the materials in today and probably mounted tomorrow morning. still waiting on the word if the parts are in or not

 

Did you ever get an email back?

 

Sorry it took so long to chime in, but I worked late last night. That stuff (or what was left of it) was definitly fiberglass. Last I checked cereamic and stainless wool should be able to hold up to alot more heat than a simple backfire would produce, so even though the muffler still could have exploded the ceramic would still be intact. On top of that the FG we pulled out fo there crumbled into a fine dust just like when I wrapped my header. I got that **** all over me.

 

My magnaflow lived through many many backfires (everytime i shut the car off almost) and never blew up. Now I am trying out an Aero mufler.

 

Well I didn't get my material in today so I have to wait till tomorrow to get it done. My magnaflow has lasted me since i've got an rx-7 in the back ... not sure how much is left in there. I hope I can blow it just for the sake of finding out what is inside of it.

As for borla emailing me back they have and once i told them all my listed stuff, he responded back and emailed me asking how much I paid for it. I told him 180$ and he said he'll have a check sent out to me ASAP as a reimbursment for it. I had a feeling they might do that when they asked me for the price i paid for it. I think I only paid 120$ or so for 2 of them brand new on ebay .. so i guess it all worked out in the end