My New Borla Exhaust
So, a lot has been written about the Camaro Borla exhaust online, and the reviews have been glowing from all over the place. Keeping that in mind, I had had made up my mind to get a Borla exhaust for my Camaro, but was taking a little time. Ultimately, I'm glad that I did as it meant that I was able to get the new Borla ATAK exhaust system. The guys at Southern Car Parts, who I've come to know pretty well since buying my Camaro, were actually carrying the system the day that it went on sale through Borla, so I ordered through them. There was a short wait for Borla to manufacture it, which was reasonable (although I was giddy with anticipation and each passing day only seemed to be longer and longer) but I finally got my hands on my system. Took me and a friend a couple hours to install, and it was a pretty easy install. I wont lie, I did break a sweat working in some of the hangers to their rubber holders, and got a little frustrated in some parts of the install, but ultimately got it installed perfectly without too much hassle. All while sharing a couple beers with my friend, so even when it wasn't easy as pie it was still a lot of fun.
With all the hard work done, I was able to drive around with the ATAK exhaust on. This right here is why I'm writing this article. WOW! I loved my Camaro before, but hearing it even start-up I knew I was in for a treat. Accelerating at 4500 RPMs in 3rd gear, this thing had so much power and growl to it that my friend and I were giggling with glee like school-children. There was no pop or gurgle like you get with some of the other exhaust systems either, and the cabin drone was there but not over-bearing by any means. With the windows rolled down and the wind rushing in though the exhaust was loud and sexy. My Camaro already gets a lot of looks, but that number went up a good bit when out driving with the ATAK on. Surprisingly, none of those looks were of the disgusted and annoyed variety too, and that's why I'm raving about this exhaust. To give that much more exhaust noise and aggressive tone without becoming overbearing or obnoxious at an idle is an impressive engineering feat.
This exhaust is not for the faint of heart, I have to say that. It is loud (but not so loud my friend and I couldn't hear each other talk while riding together) and it is aggressive, and it definitely provides noticable performance boosts. I could feel the Camaro take off a little bit quicker, and accelerate with more gusto through the middle gears, in a manner that I hadn't before installing the exhaust. This is a fantastic exhaust system and a great upgrade that I would recommend to any Camaro driver out there.
Giving this a letter grade would be easy (something I can't always say about aftermarket parts): This system is a definite A+
Here's the official Borla video concerning the ATAK exhaust, so you can hear it for yourself. I'll try and get some video of mine up at some point soon.