I have been looking into exhaust systems for my 02 Malibu for a while now, but it seems like all the legit companies do not have exhaust kits for the 97-03 Malibu (Magnaflow, Flowmaster, etc.). Does anyone know any brands that make good quality exhaust systems for these Malibus? I would be looking for a dual exhaust that is not loud. Also, I recently ordered headers for my Malibu. Would these work ok with the stock exhaust? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

Are we talking a v6 malibu? On the four cylinder a dual exhaust is going to make you lose power. Either way, I have never found an actual exhaust kit (cat-back or headers) for these cars. You could try to see the similarities between the Grand Am GT exhaust (which is dual) and see if you can make it work.

BTW, where did you get the headers from. To answer your question regarding that: Anything that frees up pressure, to an extent, will provide extra power. Adding headers to a stock exhaust will still help, but you will not be utilizing the potential power to it's maximum.

Flow master and Magnaflow are both going to provide you with a loud sound. Magnaflow will have more of a "rice" sound to it. I've never been pleased with what I've heard from my friend's or co-worker's cars that had MF on them.

My personal recommendation; find an exhaust shop or someone who bends pipe and make a custom exhaust for yourself. I don't know the factory diameter of the stock pipe, I'd need that to give you a viable size to utilize freed up power. For example a saturn has a 1" and 7/8" exhaust. Very small. The car has enough back pressure to run a 2.25" exhaust without relieving too much pressure and losing power. 2.5" is a little big unless you have a SAFC and a good air induction system. Anything bigger than that has to be for a turbo or it will not run good if it does at all.

 

Yeah, V6 3.1 Malibu. You're definitely right that nobody seems to make aftermarket exhaust for these Malibus. I've heard on a couple other forums (like you said) that Borla and Pacesetter make exhaust systems for the Grand Am which is basically the same exact car so it will work. I am about to buy the Borla system right after I finish writing this.

I actually had a Magnaflow muffler on my car a little while ago but got it taken off after about a week. It didn't sound awful, but even the slight ricey drone to it was too much for me. A friend of mine had a Borla exhaust on his Fusion and it sounded really good so that's probably the direction I'll go.

I bought S&S headers from MP Racing, a really good site. Hopefully matching up the headers and Borla cat-back exhaust will work good. Anyway thanks a lot for your help, I really appreciate it.

 

I'm not going to get into it; but don't buy Pace Setter products. They're absolute garbage. Put it this way, my header on my other car knocks the hell out of my subframe and the whole car shakes. And the catback sounds like ***. I much prefer Flowmaster.