In my quest for keeping as little attention possible drawn to my Subie, I thought it might be a good idea to have a slightly quieter exhaust for cruising around on the streets.  Setting off car alarms and waking the dead every time I drive through a neighborhood has made me paranoid, especially after having already been hassled by police in the past.  A regular exhaust silencer would be way too restrictive and a whole new cat-back wouldn't make sense.  Sacrifice power for a quiet exhaust?  No thanks.  I wanted something that would keep my exhaust quiet while cruising around town, but still flowed enough to keep form hurting performance.  Enter APEXi.

I've always wanted to try out APEXi's Actice Tail Silencer (ATS), but was always too lazy to call up my buddy and pick one up.  As I keep modding my car, I get more and more paranoid (think flashbacks to the state ref).  I figured a quieter exhaust just might be a good idea, so I picked up an ATS for my titanium N1 exhaust and slapped it on.

APEXi claims that there is almost no power loss at all with the ATS since it completely opens up under load, allowing the exhaust to flow freely.  The butt-dyno confirms this, so that's all that matters in my book.  Although the top-end power doesn't feel the exact same as my fully open exhaust, I almost feel an increase in midrange and partial-throttle power due to the increased backpressure, but I have no real dyno numbers to back up any of these claims.  My driving impressions alone are enough.  For just cruising around town daily, I couldn't be happier.  Since the ATS will only be used on the streets when the Subie is pulling daily-driver duties, I don't need to worry about a slight loss in top-end.  When its track time though, the ATS will have to sit on the sidelines.

As far as sound goes, it does what it's supposed to do.  When the ATS fully opens, the exhaust still isn't as loud as it was without the silencer, but you can definitely notice when it opens.  Under load / high RPMs, it's loud enough for the streets, but it's not like I'm going to be full throttle everywhere I go.  When just cruising around town, it's like driving a car with a stock exhaust - very quiet.  Before the ATS when I would see a cop, I would throw it in neutral to try and go unnoticed, but my car could be heard idling a block away.  Now I can just drive normally and not even worry.

The end result is awesome.  I can't tell you how good it feels to drive past cops and feel completely at ease when they don't even look in your direction.  I don't get headaches after taking long trips, and I don't get complaints from girls I drive around with (at least not about the car being loud).  With my current setup, I have the best of both worlds.  I can easily fly under the radar when I need to without sacrificing power.  If I want to go all out, the silencer comes out with one bolt, rather than going with a mellow exhaust setup.  I know some of you are thinking, "Stop being such a baby, run an open downpipe and quit your bitching."  Try living in SoCal with a cop on every corner looking to send us "street racers" to the state ref at the drop of hat.  Not fun, trust me.  If the ATS will work with your application, pick it up, it's definitely worth it.