Hey guys! After a couple months of owning my 11' MINI S I've decided it's time for an exhaust! Problem is I'm not sure if I wanna do cat back or turbo back, or, if I even want to do one at all.
My question is- if I take off the exhaust from the cat back, to see how I like the sound, are there any major problems that could arise?
Worried about fires, overheating from directing hot exhaust not all the way out the back etc. here's a picture of what it looks like.
I know its not the best but is it going to cause a lot of harm??







Trying to figure out if I like how
Loud it is. Thanks for the help in advance!

 

Turbocharged cars are not that loud to begin with for performance exhausts, it's just the nature of the beast. A cat-back exhaust won't do much for you in the way of sound. A cat is restrictive and turbos don't spool as quick when there are multiple cats in your exhaust system, only way your going to get the sound I know you want is to remove all cats from you exhaust and get a down-pipe back exhaust. You will get a CEL unless you get a custom tune that can reprogram the CEL out, but come smog time you'll have to re-install the cats, then smog your car and remove them again. Quite a hassle!

 

http://www.siliconeintakes.com/dsm-intercooler-piping/2.0%22-motorized-exhaust-cutout-valve-p-9575.html


I was thinking something like this for legalities. Not too worried about smog. Any exhaust I do would be a plug and play sort of thing. Nothing permanently mounted if I can help it. I had just heard a bunch of bad things about drone on the freeway etc. wanted to try it before I spent a bunch can of cash on this and the rest of the system, ya know?