Racing Beat Power Pulse Exhaust Quality
 

Just to nip this in the bud ahead of time: I purchased this from 949 Racing. Dan has been super nice to talk to about the whole thing and even took the time to talk to Racing Beat about this issue for me. 949 Racing is awesome. Racing Beat is not.


I recently purchased a Racing Beat Power Pulse Muffler as a luxury purchase, to match the extremely nice Racing Beat header and Racing Beat midpipe i had already. Since i'm building an extremely nice car with extremely nice parts to enjoy for a long time to come, i figured spending $350 for a muffler was maybe worth it.

This is what i received. Joke is on me!

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4470/...e3069fe0_b.jpg
20171010_172344 by concealer404, on Flickr

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4473/...7a904e9b_b.jpg
20171010_172638 by concealer404, on Flickr

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4461/...ae75c08a_b.jpg
20171010_174534 by concealer404, on Flickr


These welds are pretty unacceptable in the context of a $350 muffler. If i wanted questionable quality i would have bought an $89.99 ebay muffler and taken my chances.

I've since been provided with picture examples of what the welds normally look like on these exhausts (as well have seen the weld quality on the two Racing Beat midpipes and headers i have on my cars) and have determined that this is entirely different. We are now paying the same price for a vastly inferior product.

Two examples below:

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4494/...84ec6e7a_b.jpg
Mitymazda rb muffler 4 by concealer404, on Flickr

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4447/...336aeda5_b.jpg
ian rb welds by concealer404, on Flickr

The vendor that i purchased this from reached out to Racing Beat on my behalf, and was told that "Apparently they changed the rod they use, and the welders are not 'used to it' yet.
They didn't say they won't swap it, but admitted that the rest of the batch is the same." What fucking douchebags. (Racing Beat, not the vendor)

Take extreme caution. I would absolute not suggest purchasing this product at anywhere near this price. :unamused:

Looks like it was welded in "intro to welding" class in junior high school

.........and by jr high school I mean sweat shop in china.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ecc0337cff.jpg
This is what it should look like, after 6 years

I had been thinking about ordering one of their new Power Pulse Race mufflers, but might hold off after seeing their recent lack of QC. Looks like even the product photos on their website for the new race muffler include toothpaste-like welds:

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a328b8d245.jpg

If you want to keep your sanity in check I would avoide a Racing Beat muffler. It was acceptable with stock piping, but after putting the racing beat manifold and a high flow cat, sound was obnoxious and droney.
I would buy a Magnaflow box and paying a shop to do the welding. The bigger the box = quieter, sane mind.

I must recommend the Magma flow as well. Lars made muy bueno welds, too. Molten goodness.

I have other options and didn't need to purchase this in the first place, it was just a "well maybe i'll treat the car to a nice thing" purchase. Joke's on me.

This is an FYI and a suggestion to not buy this trash, yourself.

so I guess this mean the headers will be the same ? or they are made in different chineese shop? :rofl:

I'm pretty sure it's Taiwan instead of China lol.

For what it's worth, I purchased a Racing Beat header through 949 a couple of months ago and it is a thing of beauty. Hopefully they do right by you and exchange your muffler.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6207d7ca83.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7b3997a570.jpg

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This is what happens when good companies start cutting costs and outsource to the cheapest China bidders.

might as well buy ebay China junk at 1/3rd the cost.

I had a racing beat power pulse dual tip muffler on my last miata, it came with the car, so no idea how old it was, but it held up real good, sounded great with a stock car and midpipe.
But i do not remember how the welds looked, never bothered to look at them.

I'll give you $150 and get rid of it for you.

Yep i have a couple RB headers. They're nice.

Nah, 949 has graciously agreed to take this trash back, but i'm still on hook for shipping. Trying to sell it locally quick to minimize loss, otherwise that's what i'm doing.

They've realized the young kids these days don't care about the actual quality of what they are buying.

Apparently.

FWIW, my midpipe appears to be MIG'd as well, but without spatter EVERYWHERE, contaminated welds, and just generally looks quite nice and uniform, not the bird shit that's on every weld on this muffler.

Just to add another data point, recently got the race connecting midpipe from racingbeat europe, took about 4 weeks to get here from the US:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...03f77f52e0.jpg

The welds on the curved parts seem much better than the MIG crap on the hangers, but looks solid enough.
Its obvious the resonator was welded somewhere else, based on the difference between the end cap weld and the one connecting to the actual pipe.
Could look much better if it had some nitric acid brushed on afterwards.

That looks dirty, but the welds themselves look solid. I'd probably just suck it up and clean mine up if it looked like that.

Yeah Im not worried. A quick scrub/polish should get rid of it

Hope the header looks better.

.

My tip is crooked, so i'd probably see that once installed. :(

Racing Beat so far seems to not give a shit. I'll call them tomorrow or Thursday and see if they tell me to go away "in person." Resigning myself to eating a shitload of money in shipping to send it back if so.

.

My racing beat dual outlet muffler broke the one hanger weld after like a year or 2. I took it off and hit it with a MIG welder with SS wire. It'll never break again.

RB is exchanging the muffler and sending me a shipping label. Bruce was super pleasant to talk to on the phone, seemed to be previously away of the QC issues, and said there might be a few week delay while a new batch is made up to their previous quality standards.

So... maybe happy ending! (In progress)

:)

Subscribing to this. Interested if the same problem appears and gets fixed in the Race Power Pulse.

That's pretty gross, but I thought you liked gross things?

Received RB 01-05 Header, welds were significantly better than the midpipe, much cleaner (as clean as the casing welds you see in the resonator, which clearly were done by someone other than who welded the flanges)

Pretty satisfied.

Super fun update:

Muffler was shipped back to Racing Beat with the shipping label provided. Got a voicemail today from Racing Beat, but no missed call showing on phone, stating that they received the muffler, but there's a dent in the canister and I need to give them a call. Tried to call back, closed for the day. Will try tomorrow.

Hope they had shipping insurance on that label. Muffler was taken out for original pictures, had no dent. Was put back in box after that. Had no dent. Was taken out once or twice to show people how terrible it was. Had no dent. Was shipped back in original packaging. With no dent.

If there is a dent on the muffler with the gorilla booger welds and crooked exhaust tip, it was from return shipping. More to come after tomorrow's phone call.

It isn't like they're going to sell it to someone else, so the dent is immaterial. Right, RB? RIGHT????

Or grind off the booger welds and reweld it and send it back to you with the dent probably. Sounds like bad things coming.

@doward,

This is where we're at with this thing, just in case you weren't following along already. :bowrofl:

Glad I stumbled upon this as I was looking at potentially purchasing an entire Racing Beat header-back system. Looking forward to more updates as they come in.

I have Racing Beat's header and dual output muffler (came with the car) tied together with a Roadster Sport catted midpipe. The RB header and muffler are literal works of art. The midpipe has sloppy welds and other QC issues. [shrugs]

From what i'm seeing, the header is safe to purchase. It's not made in the same place, with the same process, or by the same people. I'd still buy their header again. It's the only one worth buying.

I'm not writing them off yet. Bruce is nice people, we'll figure it out.

Well shit. I have one of these on my shopping list since I'm sick of my cheapo Yonaka (on my second broken core now). The local exhaust shops want some crazy $$ to weld something up for my car. Any suggestions for something off the shelf that's quiet-ish for an NA/SC car?

MK TURBO all the things.

Yeah bug Lars, i've been impressed with the exhaust work i've seen out of him. The Roadstersports seem to be nice too. I've had them on a previous car.

Bruce was his normal cheery helpful self. Just wanted to know if i had noticed one, which of course i hadn't, and if i had i would have had pursued a shipping claim through 949 rather than go through this hassle. He'll let me know when they have another muffler for me.

When I'm not broke I'll hit Lars up then and see if he can whip up something NA for me. The roadster sports seem decent, but a bit louder than I'd like for an SC. Thanks!

I have a 2.5" version of my normal turbo exhaust on one of my naturally aspirated NA miata's. I think I have 1 resonator in it along with the giant muffler. I think it sounds good, and is no where near as loud as I was expecting a 2.5" exhaust on a naturally aspirated car to be. I don't generally build just exhausts to sell simple because shipping it is expensive due to sizing.