Let me start this review off by giving you a little bit of background story. Before owning my M5 I had an Audi S5 which originally had a Billy Boat exhaust system; but it was too loud (set off every car alarm in my apartment garage leading to complaints) and the drone was giving me migraines as I was driving back and forth from Dallas and OKC almost on a weekly basis. At that time I was told of AWE and they had 2 exhaust systems for my S5. One was a track system, which was more aggressive, and the touring, which I got was milder on daily driving but on WOT it gives a great sound.
Fast forward 6 years...bye bye S5 and hello M5. Now with the OEM exhaust we all know it’s terrible so I did the exhaust valve mod and was pretty content with it….for a while.
On August 5th I was surfing the forums, going back and forth between by options like I do on a daily basis when I came across a post from Josh at AWE that they were about to release a system. I immediately responded to his post about being anxious to see what they would release. I have dealt with their company in the past, I know their customer service, I know their build quality, and I was genuinely pleased to see that they were on the M5 format. At this time I honestly had a small interest on actually buying the product as oppose to seeing what was being released. A couple of days later Josh PM’ed me to talk about the exhaust and after many, many, many back and forth messages he convinced me to give their system a shot. What really drove me to pull the trigger was not my prior experience with the company but rather than I would be one of the very first to have this system on the M5. Josh worked with me every step of the way answering all my questions and trust me there was a ton. In the end we got the deal done and now it’s time to wait for the production to complete and to be shipped to me. The last week of September I got an email from Josh saying that the system was complete and that it was being shipped to me (the entire time from purchase to delivery was approximately 4 weeks).
Unboxing
The system came in a nicely packaged box with tons of Styrofoam to help protect the product.
Each piece labeled so that you know what goes where based on the install guide.
Each item packaged nicely and carefully to protect them.
Damn I love the color of the diamond black tips!!!!!
4 inch tips are much better than the OEM 3 inchers.
Install
I didn’t have the tools or garage space to do this install myself so I had a local performance shop do it. However, after watching them do it I’m sure other that do have the space and tools could do the install themselves. Thanks again to Steve and Chris at PRT Performance in Lewisville, TX for doing the install.
You can visit this site for the installation guide (
http://www.awe-tuning.com/media/pdf/...m5_exhaust.pdf)
Even pros read the directions.
Cut the OEM exhaust at the dimples.
Test fitting the mufflers and tips.
Same thing on the other side.
Making sure everything is even.
Driving Review
As I stated before I came from the OEM exhaust with the valve mod done to it. With the mod done the driving had a bit of a drone to it especially when cruising right around 1800-2000 rpms. With this system there is literally no drone in that same range but when you put the hammer down the car comes alive! I was actually quite surprised how quiet the daily driving is now b/c I was expecting the drone to be similar to the OEM setup I had.
Sound Comparison
Here is a sound clip comparing the OEM setup I had with the new AWE setup. As you can hear the AWE sounds much deeper and has an overall better tone compared to OEM. What I am most surprised about is the difference in the sound during the revving. OEM literally sounds like a fart from a mouse compared to this system.
I am also working on putting together a comparison between some other exhaust systems and the AWE to give everyone a better idea of where this system sit but it's been a busy month so getting everyone together has been a bit of a challenge. We are all planning to get together in November to do some installs with each other and will get something together at that time.
Lastly here is a clip of the exhaust when I put it on the dyno after the install. I wanted to do a before and after install to show the gains (if any exist) but their dyno was in use so I couldn't do that. I just love the way this thing sounds!!! Please contact me with any questions or contact Josh/AWE if you have more technical questions and he can certainly help you.