I bought a V-12 because I like the way a V-12 sounds, and my 1994 SL600 was just too quiet for me. Last weekend I removed the rear muffler, and made a 3" diameter straight pipe to go in it's place. Now it sounds great! Now I can hear that great V-12 sound when I roll down the windows. With the hard top on, and the windows rolled up, I can just hear it a little bit inside the car.The center muffler does a good enough job of quieting down the car for me. Removingthe rear muffler made just the right amount of sound I was looking for.

I have a welder and some metal fabrication skills, so it was pretty easy to do.After unbolting the old muffler, I cut the front flange off of it using a Sawzall, as close to the flange as I could. I then took a prebent 45 degree 3" pipe section, and sawed about 20 degrees off of it to get the pipe to turn back down, so that it would exit just below the bumperr. I welded the turn section on the flange, and I then welded on a piece of straight 3" pipe to run it out past the rear bumper. One could put a 3" turn down on the end and stop the pipe before the rear bumper like a stock exhuast, but I wanted to go ahead and exit it out the back.I put a universal exhaust hanger near thestock rear exhaust hanger position.I have a polished stainless tip on order, to give a nice finished look to the exposed section of pipe. Instead of ordering a new stock rear flange gasket, I used a solid copper Mr Gasket 3 bolt header collector gasket. The ID was right, and the hole pattern was close enough that removing a few more thousandths with a rotary file made it fit well.

All in all, the pipe section cost about $60 to make, and another $60 for the polished 3" tip to finish it off. I would think that most muffler shops could make one for you without costing a fortune.

 

Did you notice any performance difference?
I read somewhere on the web (not this forum) that performance will drop when backpressure is altered ???
Flowmaster is supposed to make a muffler for the R129 SL600 (i e-mailed them today and will hopefully get an answer).
If there is no loss of HP when altering the rear muffler, then it would be fun to have my local muffler shop fixing a straight through pipe that looks good (or a decent sounding aftermarket rear muffler).

I own a low mileage 1995 SL600 and would like just a bit more sound, and still have the original look