I had a freakish buzzing, rattling, grating, sizzling, ratcheting, (and so on) ... noise coming from underneath my SVX. It was intermittent, but at its worst under hard acceleration and/or when the car was cold in 1st gear and accelerating lightly around 1200 RPM. It was starting to drive me nuts, and I kept procrastinating.

Anyway, yesterday I finally took it to a local exhaust place (Kwik-Way on Kiely in San Jose). The guy there obviously knew his exhaust stuff -- though he had never worked on an SVX -- and determined that in my case it wasn't a heat shield; something was loose inside the resonator. He had the resonator cut out and in its place put an 18" Blue Streak glasspack.

After 1 1/2 years, the noise is gone. Hallelujah!

I haven't noticed a major change/increase in exhaust tone or decibel level. I also haven't noticed an obvious increase in power, though there may be a subjective increase -- I'm no longer embarrassed to step on the gas! :*)

--Brad