Exhaust upgrade for the 2005 Pontiac GTO

Back in our March '06 issue, we installed a bevy of bolt-ons to our project 2005 GTO for a 34 rear-wheel horsepower gain. Included in that story was a quality set of Stainless Works' 1.75-inch headers. Though they fit great up top, we had some trouble lining up the intermediate pipes to our factory exhaust system. This wasn't SW's fault: we'd installed a 2004 GTO-only driveshaft loop for safety's sake back when the Goat was brand-new and the loops weren't out for the '05's different exhaust system. This move would come back to haunt us later on, but for now it caused interference issues with the exhaust that would have to be fixed.Once Stainless Works was told of the problem, it offered us the opportunity to visit the shop in Chagrin Falls , Ohio , so the SW techs could verify that the problem was on our end, and offer up a solution. Not only that, but Stainless Works also offered to bolt up its brand-new 2005 GTO exhaust system as well!That was a deal too good to pass up, so I jumped onto I-80 West and headed toward Ohio . When I got there, I picked up Stainless Works' Al Noe, and we cruised over to GMR Speed in nearby Hinckley for a baseline dyno session. The plan was to baseline, swap the factory Sport Appearance Package exhaust for the Stainless Works system, and then re-dyno to see how much power we gained.