When it comes to improving your vehicle’s performance, you have two options. However, stainless still can be very expensive, as opposed to aluminized steel which is very affordable. It is also resistant to corrosion, just not to the level of stainless steel. Since there is no back pressure and the diameter is large enough, the engine will not use a lot of energy to push the exhausts out. While getting a cat-back performance exhaust system can be pricier initially, it can save on a lot of costs in the future. These exhaust pipes are usually wrapped in sound-absorbing materials, mostly fiberglass packing.
By running pipes from the catalytic converter to the muffler and from the muffler to the exhaust tip, cat back exhaust systems improve exhaust gas flow, providing small performance boosts. However, your performance gains may be limited if your catalytic converter restricts gas flow, as a catback exhaust system is installed ‘downstream’ of the converter. Header-back systems are increasingly rare, namely because of modern emissions systems. Since removing your vehicle’s factory emissions components is highly illegal, the previous two options are more common. However, header-back systems are still available for some older, pre-emissions applications. In these cases, header-back systems offer more performance and volume than cat-back or axle-back systems