i've read all the posts about exhausts on more than 3 boards, including clubrsx.com, and my conlusion about universal and name brand(muffler) is that universal might sound more crisp and louder than name brand and would rust out faster if the material is weak. as far as performance goes, there shouldn't be any difference or at least you won't be able to notice it at all. if quality is not an issue and you don't care about name brand, get universal...it's just a muffler under that car which will not do much **** except producing noise.