no idea where to start :(

[fmugur]

Originally Posted by danp

Glad to hear you got it sorted. You had mentioned that you were losing power when this sound became evident. Has this disappeared?

PS. You helped me with laptop software a year or so ago. Thanks again for that.

Hey Dan, how is it going? Did you have it for sale a month ago or so?
Yeah, I have no power loss anymore. Most likely some of the plates inside mine might have been blocking the flow and that might explain the power loss but on top I might have felt more power loss than the actual loss...

[fmugur]

Originally Posted by danp

Was just under mine, looking at doing the trans fluid and checking the mech. sleeve to see if I should get a new one. Looks like it was wet at one time so will need to get one.

While there I looked at my resonator and was surprised to see I had a small dent in what appears to be the same spot. Seems surprising that such a slight dent could be the trouble it was.

I do have an unusual sound/vibration at certain RPM's as well and I am curious to see if my dent is causing a similar sound. The difference is I am not noticing any performance change when this occurs.

What is funny is that the dent is in both sides of the resonator as you can see in the picture. I wonder what could cause that. I don't see how it got hit from the top.

Originally Posted by danp

Perhaps, we could meet one day and you could take mine out and let me know if it's the same as yours was.

Give me a call or email me next week. I should be all week in Crowfoot.

[danp]

I'm well, I trust your the same.

I did have a run at listing it privately. I have been itching to get back to a sedan and had one I was interested in but did not find a suitable buyer.

I'm ok with that as I really do love the X and if my wife loved it as much as I did all would be well...

I appreciate the offer and will take you up on it after the holidays. Have a great weekend.

[SlickGT1]

I was under my car on Thursday, and I have the same exact friggen dent in my resonator. I also have had this exhaust drone since day one of owning this car.

fmugur, can you please post a link as to what you replaced yours with. I have a feeling there is a design flaw in the factory one, as all of us seem to have this identical dent.

[fmugur]

It is a design flaw for sure. The resonator cannot bent on both sides from an external force. As you can see in the pictures the dents are where the support point are which seems to be weak.

I bought the oe resonator from ecstuning and had to be shipped from Germany.

18107526389 - Center Muffler - ES#39458

[Ricky Bobby]

At $450-500 for the OE resonator it makes you wonder if its time to upgrade to a Supersprint (i.e. did the OE design get improved or will it dent again?):

E53 X5 4.4/4.6is Supersprint Section 2 Tuned Resonator - Turner Motorsport

[fmugur]

Yeah, I guess that was an option but since I didn't know for sure the resonator was the problem I wanted to spend as little as possible to diagnose the problem. This Supersprint is more expensive though...

[SlickGT1]

Dayamn. Does that need to be welded up, or can those clamps be re-used. That is up there on the money scale. Curious what Craig will quote that out to.

[fmugur]

Originally Posted by SlickGT1

Dayamn. Does that need to be welded up, or can those clamps be re-used. That is up there on the money scale. Curious what Craig will quote that out to.

No welding involved, just clamps and bolts. I thought would take me 1-2 hours but it took me two evenings
This is what happens if you don't have the experience or attention to details. I can do it now in probably 30 minutes.
The challenge is with rusted bolts and fitting the new one in.
What got me was the length of the curved pipe that was about one inch longer in my case. I believe they come like that to adjusting properly on the car. So, that extra had to be cut off but I didn't realize at the beginning and... go figure why doesn't fit in
Place it on top of the old one and cut the extra pipe before attempting to put it back on the car.

[Ricky Bobby]

Yeah Slick the OE and the Supersprint should both bolt right in.

Or you could just delete it and install an Xpipe in place, probably would be cheaper than a new resonator, and you'd get a bit more throatiness from the X.