Best Aftermarket Exhaust Options

In most countries local regulations and laws prevail over whatever conditions decided by business actors... I do not know about the US though, I'm from a country famous for its administrative burden.

 

That's great, but it's not a hobby of OP's nor is it the question he is asking. Your opinion is okay one time, but we don't need it repeatedly. There's a risk with modifying a car; OP acknowledged that as well. Move on.

OP: Without hearing them all in person, I would just go with Novitec if you have had success with them before.

 

This is correct

The legal issues with 296 exhaust mods that remove the GPF in the US stem from section 203(a)(3) the Clean Air Act and 40 C.F.R. §§ 1068.101(b)

The warranty issues are separate, but do not encompass MMA

 

The lack of situational awareness with respect to the legal and warranty issues that most OP demonstrate when deleting a GPF I find intriguing.
Mod your exhaust all you want, just be mindful of the minefield.

 

Emissions components of the exhaust aside, why would the MMA not apply to Ferrari's warranty? Genuinely curious. I've actually fought this battle with Porsche (not exhaust related).

 

I too have wrestled with Porsche on this topic. When the Ferrari warranty applies, MMA is in full effect and the warranty must be managed and implemented with transparency and fairness in accordance with the act, including allowing the use of non-OEM parts. The legal problem is Ferrari’s warranty does not extend to modified cars, so MMA applicability is not triggered.

This conversation used to center on aftermarket wheels, lowered suspensions, and muffler deletes. Not too complicated. Now the conversation centers around GPF deletes and ECU tunes. Ferrari wants nothing to do with that. Ferrai warranties the car in the exact condition as it left the factory. Nothing more.

It is your car and I applaud the effort and discipline it (usually) takes to acquire and enjoy a Ferrari. Modify the car all you want. Just be careful and understand the potential mess you could be creating on a $500,000+ car.

 

I'd love to see some real-world cases of Ferrari denying warranty work because of aftermarket wheels

 

search the board and several examples should pop up
Different wheel offsets is the usual culprit

 

“The legal problem is Ferrari’s warranty does not extend to modified cars, so MMA applicability is not triggered”

This is the part I don’t understand.

MMA explicitly controls in these situations as a consumer protection law. Whether Ferrari denies a claim or not, doesn’t have bearing on whether they have legal standing to do so in the US.

If you put aftermarket wheels on your car and your windshield wipers stopped working and they denied a warranty claim during your valid term, the onus would be on them to prove that the wheels caused the wiper failure. This is akin to a severability clause in a contract. Yes, you may have to take them to court but they don’t have any special out as compared to other manufacturers.

I get what you’re saying as to whether or not it’s worth the fight, relationship harm, future product status, etc but Ferrari is not exempt from MMA generally.

 

There was a time period between 2012 and 2022 when Porsche would invite owners to Driver Education (DE) events and then cross reference attendee VIN to later deny warranty claims because the car was tracked. We don’t see that any more but OEM warranty horror stories are legion

 

I just love to watch and read all the mods suggested for an engineering marvel, the 296. The mods have been produced without 5% of the research that the manufacturer does.

The reality is the 296 is modified the less appealing it is to the majority of the market . If this was not true there would be a proliferation of companies offering mods discussed here , not a handful .

Mod a car all you like however in the market you are probably swimming against the tide .

 

PM me and I can try to explain better in private

 

I've watched the novitec videos on the 296 exhaust, look wise personally I don't like how it changes the center exhaust to two pipes. I really like the oem center exhaust look, my favorite part of the car.
Sounded pretty good on the video but I question how much it adds to the driving experience especially for a coup. Maybe you would benefit more from a gts?
I do agree the 296 could maybe use a bit more "drama" even though the oem exhaust sounds good.

 

Keep modding, dude. Seriously. There are so many examples of Ferraris off forums that are modded. You see them all the time on social media and in real life at car shows. Owners are beyond happy with the results. The people on forums think it's sacrilege. Who cares? The F8 needs an exhaust for sure

 

Totally, it's your car, do what you wish. I think mods totally make sense if oem parts were done for reasons other than performance and reliability. If it was for regulatory reasons or detuned because they want to sell you the 296xxx next year, then mods make complete sense to me.

 

So here is my personal experience. I installed the Boost Hoses from 2M Faberacation, no problem. Car definitely sounded better, and the turbos seemed more responsive.

Then we went down the rabbit hole and tried a full free-flow, no-cat exhaust system. We got so many codes and Limp mode. Tried 02 Extensions, tried Cat Emulators. None of it worked. Then we noticed that the Bottom boost hose had popped off. I also added the Novitec intake covers, which increase airflow into the system. We changed to professional band clamps, no more cricled wire garbage. But it became whack-a-mole, and we eventually changed all the band clamps.

We could see that we were never going to make a fully free-flow cat-less system work. So we switched to 200 Cell Cats with titanium Catback. Now it was working great till you went WOT. The car would go into Limp mode, every time. No codes, No CEL. Just the Turtle and the reduced performance message after a WOT blast, otherwise, you could drive all day issue-free at 70% throttle and never have a problem. Which is what we see in videos.

Again, we broke it all down, went back to complete stock, and realized it was the bottom boost hose again. No matter how much we tightened it, they would pop off; we reached a point where we were afraid of breaking the plastic if we tightened them too much.

So we went full stock on tubes and put in just the new 200 Cel Cats, and bam, Limp Mode again. But the bigger issue we were noticing is that while the car sounded much better, the Butt Dyno indicated a loss of horsepower with this setup. You could feel it.

We are now back to complete stock, and I might swap the upper tubes to get the "whoosh" back. But until there is a Tune for the car and the ECU has been cracked, this is just pouring money down a drain. I am lucky I have some people who wanted to see this work as bad as I did and then sell it to others, for whom I got a big break on labor.

The only system that claims actual HP gains is Novitec, and you are talking $25k before install. If you notice, Novitec and Fabspeed keep coming out with new biggy back modules to keep their systems working. I am not sure they really work to begin with when pushed hard at WOT. Revving in my garage, no problem. No limp mode. Driving down the street is the same. Going for a blast at WOT....here comes the Turtle. This car has a very sensitive ECU. If any parameters are out of sequence, then it will go into Limp mode.

I am not spending any more money on the exhaust until there is a Tune. I have spent way too much on this rabbit hole.

 

My F8 had full free flow no cats titanium exhaust. I had zero issues because I was running a tune from HD Tuning.

The minute they crack the 296 ECU we will be able to go free flow with zero CEL or Turtle.

The 296 is a very sensitive beast. The F8 was awesome with that tune and exhaust the difference was night and day, added well over 150hp. This is why HD told me get an SF90 you can tune them. You can never have enough HP. Lol.

 

F8 exhaust note stock is abhorrent

 

My info could be a little old by now, but as I understand it…. The problem with the GPF exhausts is that the system has a clean cycle every now and then, because the GPF get full of particulates. The engine literally runs hotter for a period of time to burn off the particulates on the GPF….. with no GPF, well, now youre just going to put more heat through all the other parts… this has led to some unhappy results, at least on the V12 models of which I am aware. Again, as far as I know, the modules that claim to clear the codes do that by putting the system back to its initial leaning state, but it doesnt fix the problem that the system will run this overheated cleaning cycle, with nothing left in the system to clean. I have always thought if you are making a big enough change to the exhaust, you should retune the engine. I know most ECU will have a certain tolerance built in, so a small change likely results in the ECU just adjusting on its own. Where is the line between big and small? My own take upon learning about the GPF cars- and this might not be all accurate- is to simply say- leave it alone. It’s not worth it. It strikes me that you are asking for problems. I could imagine changing the cats to sport cats, getting a bit more sound level out of the exhaust, but not changing the tone.

 

Couldn’t agree more as you are being kind using the word abhorrent. Hard to believe Ferrari released a car sounding like this.

 

Better not try and improve it though or some guys will get angry