Ok i have spent several hours reading about Pros and Cons of Pypes Cat Back. But all comments good and bad are from last year has anyone purchased them in the past few months and has the quality improved? There was some talk about some improvements they were making. I am strongly considering purchasing them but there seems to be too much negative, hoping someone has some good things to say. Might be better off going with the lower end magnaflow for around the same price on Ebay. Any comments.. Also which of the 2 are the loudest?

 

I have a set of the Pypes Violators that were the original run for the C5. They offered them up a little over a year ago for something like 350-400 bucks. Here are the pros and cons in my opinion:

Cons:
-They aren't very loud at all. They claim that when you get on them they are much louder than stock, however I don't seem to hear or feel much of a difference. (They claim to have made them louder since, probably based on our feedback)
-The hangers are welded on and kind of like a "spoon". I've noticed they do tend to droop down over a few weeks and tend to settle in, not staying where you hung them originally.
-Finally and most ignificantly were the over the axle pipes. Mine were WAAAYYYYY OFF. When I took it off the jack and let her down after the install, the driver's side over the axle pipe was so far off on its weld that it was pinned against the rear sway bar. This I could not live with, so I pulled it, cut out about a 1/4 pie shaped slice of the pipe and welded her back up. Presto, it fit perfect. The passenger's side is within 1/2 an inch of the sway bar so it bangs into it every once in a while, but I'm living with that side until spring.

Pros:
-The introductory price
-The looks are very nice, highly polished stainless steel with sweet tips
-The company has the ***** to throw down an exhaust that is roughly 1/2 the price of the competition. That is a big positive considering how many aftermarket suppliers hit us with the Corvette tax.
-The sound is mellow yet powerful. My wife likes it, my parents like it, I'm SURE the neighbors like it. I am used to a Flowmaster sytem on a Z28 so, it's just missing that ballsy snarl for me.

All in all a nice little setup assuming they corrected their errors from the initial run. I never bitched because I realized that we were guinea pigs and the exhaust was sold at a big discount. I may go over to the dark side and pick up one of those knock-off Borla stinger set ups I keep reading about. They look and sound pretty sweet from what I hear. Good luck on your choice.

 

From what I have heard the exhaust is of decent quality and they have very minor fitment issues. The only con I have heard is that they are much quieter than most people had hoped, even their more aggressive exhaust wasn't aggressive sounding enough.

With a C5 cat back, the only reason to swap is sound, aftermarket exhausts offer very little performance gain, if any at all.

All in all, big props to Pypes for offering an exhaust that is realistically priced and not trying to screw the Corvette owner with the Corvette tax.