F355 ITO Racing Exhaust (Japan) .... better than Capristo??

A level 2 or 1 would have less of the Jekyll and hyde nature. I like the 3 as this was a 1500 mile trip total and 90% of the time the valve closed volume was good to have. That last 10% I'd just pin the valve open. I tried to fashion something on the trip but would have had to at least remove the air boxes and cover to do so, so just left it. I'm really glad I didn't run the open challenge exhaust or I'd probably be deaf.

 

On my 5.2 there was no difference between Cap 1 and Cap 3. Pretty sure it's a marketing gimmick

 

I had a 2 previously (when I bought the car) and it was definitely louder when the valve was closed.

 

Louder than a 3?

 

Yeah, 3 is (counterintuitively maybe) the quietest. They all sound the same when bypass is open, the level refers to the amount of muffling on the primary.

 

It was noticeably louder than the stock exhaust, which I did an apples to apples change on. At some point I added high flow metallic cats from test pipes when I was running the stock exhaust after the capristo as I couldn't stand the cold idle smell. It damped it a little bit. The Capristo 3 is around the same volume as the stock exhaust just with a little more bass low down. So yeah, Cap 2 definitely noticeably louder. But even so, the real jekyll/hyde behavior is the pitch change, not just the volume.

I just bought the capristo remote so I can control it manually. I like having the quiet exhaust for 90% of the driving I do. But if I'm really on it I want the valve open and to stay open, one of the things I loved about the unmuffled challenge exhaust was the decel and sound when I'd rev match on downshifts, which is completely lost with the capristo (or any exhaust where the valve makes a big difference).