Thinking about finally making the plunge to 488 and have 2 questions. Has anyone had a car with a full Cioccolato dashboard? Does this produce much glare? Also how much difference is there from OEM exhaust with valves pinned opened vs an aftermarket exhaust without flaps like novitec. From what I gather the OEM exhaust with valves open is pretty much like straight pipes so I wonder how much different the sound it will be with an aftermarket catback exhaust. Particularly this one https://tagmotorsports.com/novitec-488-exhaust-system-no-valves Seems like all the before/after videos show OEM with valves closed vs aftermarket which is much more of a dramatic difference.
For the 488, you need to mess around with the cats to increase volume. Vast majority of 488 exhaust videos you find online are decatted. The stock exhaust, which had cats, by definition can not be straight piped. Catback exhausts will change the pitch, but not as dramatically as they do for non turbo cars.
its all in the cats. I originially changed just the cat back with an FI exhaust and it was worse than stock (as stock is more or less straight through from the cats onwards). I then changed the rest of the exhaust included the cats to 200cel (again all FI) and it sounds soooooo much better. Few big things to keep in mind though: 1) If you fiddle with the cats, pending your dealer your warranty may be in up in the air. 2) its hard to avoid a check engine light if you get hi flowing/remove your cats. You have a few solutions here: 1) tune the car to remove it (voids warranty, didnt want to do that personally), 2) use a plug in OBD tool like novitecs which will clear/stop the CEL from being thrown, however, these can also have issue and can mask legit CEL, covering up potential issues. 3) just clear the CEL when it periodically appears. I worked with my dealer when going about this process, they wanted to know what brand exhaust and who was installing it (to ensure they were reputable). Once I gave them the info they were fine with it all. Changing cats makes a MASSIVE difference in sound. Doing anything else is entirely pointless, as I found the cat back only exhausts to be far worse sounding than stock.
Tons of threads about 488 exhaust I know... I've read practically all of them and they're either about someone who is happy with their XYZ exhaust and then the thread quickly goes down the tubes to a 458 vs 488 exhaust battle. I couldn't find a thread that specifically compared OEM with the valves plugged open to something like the novitec no valved system. I must of watched almost every exhaust video on the net... They all compare stock with valves closed to the aftermarket exhaust which creates a big before/after difference. I won't be messing around with the cats, tunes, or anything else. My question is solely about the difference in sound from OEM with valves plugged open vs aftermarket cat back exhaust. Preferably someone with personal experience who has had their OEM exhaust with valves pinned open and then upgraded to something like the Novitec (or any other brand cat back exhaust) Thanks for the tip Matthew, I usually hear people who say how the catback exhaust made things sound better vs stock.. Especially the Novitec exhaust I linked to above. However, most the threads from people who sing its praises are actually selling the thing. Unbiased feedback from users like yourself is paramount.
The valves open above 2500 rpm in race mode and above 3500 rpm in sport. So to me, the only benefit of open valves all the time is when the car might be tooling along at 30 in 7th gear if you drive in auto all the time. If you drive the car like the sports car that it actually is, then you keep the rpm above 3000 most of the time with manual shifting. Then if in race mode the valves are opened by the car for you and the whole system operates as designed if you have the kind of after market exhaust which includes valves controlled by the ECU. The Tubi that is installed on my car satisfied this requirement and sounds great. My valves are open unless I am sitting at a light idling.
Do note that a straight pipe doesn’t actually mean a literally straight pipe. All straight pipe means is no cats, mufflers, or resonators. Different straight pipe exhausts can all sound different if they use different materials, having different diameters, use different bends, X-pipes, H pipe, etc. Almost all Ferrari aftermarket exhausts use X pipe. The stock exhaust is an H pipe I believe.
Phil From Fabspeed here. An aftermarket exhaust makes a huge difference on the car. If you are going to tune it I would suggest going cat bypass unless you have very strict emissions standards. 200 Cell sport cats are a fantastic way to pick up power and sound without tuning.
The stock 488 exhaust leaves a bit to be desired as far as the sound goes. If you keep it in race mode and keep the RPM's above about 3500, then it's not quite as horrible. Compared to the beautiful sound of the 458, it leaves you feeling a bit flat I think. But hey, it's a twin turbo too, not N/A. As mentioned, the best sound is probably going to come from removing the cats and installing more of a straight through exhaust. If you ran across my old thread on the subject, I had investigated building my own exhaust and incorporating tunable Helmholtz resonators on each branch of the exhaust system. I think this might have worked, but I finally just threw in the towel and sold the 488. I just wasn't loving the car like I did with the 458 Italia. When I bought the 488, I had high hopes that I would be able to make it sound like an F40 - but I don't know if that's possible. I also looked into setting up exhaust valves that operated under boost, so they would modulate the exhaust opening size according to PSI coming off the turbo. I think that might have worked and helped matters, but again, I just wasn't feeling the car as a whole. The best sounding 488 I ever heard what Alex's car over at TAG motorsports (I think that's the name). He's on Ferrari chat some place around here. I contact them at one point and they told me what exhaust system he was running (when I was driving behind him here in Monterey once). That car sounded fantastic. I believe it had the cats removed (or straight pipes in place of them), so I think dumping the factory cats is probably the first step on the path to making the 488 sound better. Ray
Personnally I do not care much about a V8 noise (V12 is on another level no matter what, for me at least) so I'm fine with the standard set-up. A V8 cannot compete on noise IMHO, just focus on what else it has to offer
I ended up getting the 488 and just got the valves plugged open. Am very happy with noise and most likely won't go aftermarket since this car is a pseudo DD for me.
