Sorry guys.. I just need to vent my frustration over a great day at work and then getting pulled over for a total of 4 tickets.

1) My turn lights were not amber - I was about to fix it this weekend because I had forgotten to change the bulbs in my new head light housing.. my fault. But a ticket otherwise..

2) My muffler was too loud.. I have been meaning to change this exhaust ever since I bought it but never got around to it. The previous owner had a HKS muffler and 3" piping installed.. It's loud but not overly loud. The one thing I didn't like was the huge opening of the tip.

3) Rear license plate holder.. I had bought a chrome holder off of ebay that had the words Talon and the logo on it.. apparently according to the officer that these plate holders are illegal. He said the plate cannot have anything covering it. The clear ones are ok but not the framed ones.

What I don't understand is what's the problem if nothing is covered up? I mean, the sticker, plate # is not covered. It does however cover like 1/10th of the words Ontario and another 1/10th of the words Yours To Discover..

The plate holder is similar to the one that other members are buying to support Club DSM Canada.. if these holders are illegal why are they being sold at places like crappy tire.. or even when the car rolls off of a dealership with their info on it?

4) I didn't have my insurance papers.. That's my fault.. I swore I had it with me in my wallet.. but I had all my old ones and not my new one. Same policy # but understandable at the same time.

I've been told by the officer that I need to have these things fixed so my first mission is to replace my muffler. I can't seem to find a wide variety of mufflers that have a 3" inlet.. I don't want to change the piping and choke up the exhaust system (but I admit I don't know much about it).

I was looking at some previous posts about Magnaflow's.. but on their site there's only one model that supposedly fits the Talon/Eclipse. I did see one at Crappy that had 3" inlets but looks like they were meant for trucks.. does this matter?

Anyone have any input on muffler choices? My goal is to keep power loss to a minimum and keep the authorities happy and not hassle me over what they deem as too loud.

Any info would be greatly appreciated.. Sorry for the long post guys - I had to get it out of my system. Right now I feel like punching through a few walls...

Ouch that's gotta hurt. I'd be working the exhaust ticket last since that's the most difficult thing to do. If you show your insurance papers, amber lights and lose the plate frame will they drop those tickets? If so that would be my initial focus. Then see if you can borrow someone's stock exhaust that might be lying around that you can bolt in and show the cops. Then make a permanent decision about the exhaust at a later date.

Again, sorry to hear. If you get stuck with 4 minor tickets you will be forced to go with high risk insurance. I did...

I was in the high risk category already in the past because I racked up 4 speeding tickets with my 98 Firebird when I had bought it new .. me + power = lead foot.

I was told that if I show the receipts to the court then it *might* be dropped. Unless I buy a muffler.. show the receipt and get a refund. For some reason I don't think that would work in order for me to get more time in making a decision.

I just fixed the lights and faxed the insurance for another copy of my papers but left the plate cover. I'm sort of refusing to let that go because I don't see everyone getting pulled over for that. If I get another warning I might reconsider though...

I had a friend get burned for a license plate frame he fought it and got it laughed out of court. He used the same argument if it came from the dealer like that than it can't be illegal. They agreed.

Tim,

You just made my day.. least that's 1 less ticket to worry about.

Going to take the day off work and start searching for mufflers...

You can borrow my stock exhaust in case you need it desperately.

I'd like to borrow some heads and let my agression and frustration do it's thing... if you know what I mean.

And to think - I just waxed my car today at work. Serves me right I suppose.

It's going to be one expensive shopping spree, I can feel it.

Winston, since you seem to have bad luck with tickets I'll help you out. My sister does paralegal work on her own, used to work for X-coppers and before that was a cop.
She could probably help you out with some of your current tickets, and any future tickets you may get. Send me a PM if you want, I'll let you know how to get ahold of her.

Thanks Shaun, I might have to take you up on that offer. I just bought an 18" resonator to muffle up the sound a bit, but the ticket said "improper muffler" and the receipt I'm going to be showing states that I bought a resonator.. I wonder if that's acceptable?

The guy at performance improvements told me that I'm better off keeping my HKS muffler because the other ones on the market (performance ones) are just as loud and that I should just add resonators..

Hope he's right. Funny thing is, I was driving home from work today and the same cop that pulled me over yesterday was driving next to me. Thankfully no more tickets but it felt like deja vu...

If you are exhaust shopping, I'm pretty sure hottexhaust is the cheapest place around by far and they are just outside TO, in woodbridge I think.

http://www.hottexhaust.com/detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=12278

Also, the exhaust in the link has two 2.25" outlets (still more area than a 3" single outlet, but looks sleeper). It is available in shiny stainless also but according to police nowadays, shiney means you want to streetrace.

I'm on the fence on this one because the guy at Performance Improvements kept telling me that I should stick with the HKS because switching to Magnaflow or Flowmasters etc. might increase the volume of the exhuast and may decrease performance.

I had asked him about the Magnaflows and he said I'm better off keeping my current muffler (although I'm not a big fan of it.. it's H U G E.. but I kind of grew into how it was set up on an angle) and just use resonators to reduce the sound.

I wouldn't mind changing the muffler, I already bought the resonator so that could be added to it.. but what do you think?

Should I add the resonator and keep the HKS or add the resonator and change to the Magnaflow? I was looking at the one in the link above last night and couldn't decide. I'm a newbie when it comes to DSM's and exhaust setups.

Thanks for the assistance, muchly appreciated.

It is a tough call. I don't think there will be too much difference. The magnaflow is a flow through and the HKS probably is also. The only thing about the HKS is that the big tip acts a bit like a microphone. I don't know where I read it but someone chopped off their 5" fart can tip and welded on a 3" and the noise level dropped.

Do you have a catalytic on? the cat reduces noise drastically (but also increases back pressure drastically).

The resonator will help. I put a dynomax 18" perferated core on mine and it made a noticable difference.

good luck

If your worried about appearance, there is a magnaflow that is 3" inlet with dual 2.5 inch outlets, looks damn near stock

"Improper muffler" is actually a different charge from "muffler too loud". If you're really lucky you get both tickets!

The improper muffler charge implies that the cop thinks your muffler falls into one of the types restricted by the highway traffic act:

So adding a resonator won't help you with this charge since it doesn't fix the improperness of your existing muffler.

Now I'm no lawyer, but I don't really see where the typical muffler that we use (HKS or APEXi) fits into these restrictions. I've always thought it would be fun to challenge this section in court, but no, I'm not willing to volunteer.

Here is my reasoning:

• It's obviously not a muffler cut-out.
• I'd argue that the meaning of straight exhaust is that the car has no muffler. If you've got a muffler then that obviously doesn't apply. Furthermore, the Dodge SRT-4 comes straight from the factory with no mufflers. Dodge says it's not needed because the turbo reduces the noise levels enough. To me this means that a turbo can be considered a muffler.
• It's not gutted because material hasn't been removed.
• The meaning of "hollywood muffler" is not apparent and is not defined anywhere as far as I can tell, and so it's already on shaky legal footing. I'd argue that it's <A HREF="http://stainlesssteelmufflers.com/StainlessSteelMufflers.htm">trademark for a certain brand name of muffler that you don't have.</A>
• It's clearly not a bypass or similar device (although a dumped external wastegate probably is).

The acceptable loudness of an exhaust is defined in the federal <A HREF="http://www.tc.gc.ca/acts-regulations/GENERAL/M/mvsa/menu.htm">Motor Vehicle Safety Act.</A> Specifically <A HREF="http://www.tc.gc.ca/acts-regulations/GENERAL/m/mvsa/regulations/mvsrg/schedules/1100/mvsrv.1.html">here</A>.

You're absolutely 100% right about all of that. The only reason why cops give out these tickets is because they think we don't know what the actual fine is for. They don't expect us to know what section 75 part 1 of the highway traffic act states.