I just love my 02 cc spyder. the shift is clunk, clunk but that gives it character. as for sound I am using pipes without any restrictions. the sound is wonderful and not intrusive. but driving at the speed of sound means I cannot hear the disturbance. point, I have not been stopped for noise. I bought mine in 03 as a wreck. paid $42,000 and added $8,500 to finish. have driven 25,000. car now has issues. clutch, top not working properly. and worse,i drove it to work when the temp. was zero. sat out all day. started it and the oil was so cold that it failed to lub the valve train. that was 4 years ago. I had been driving it until last fall keeping the revs under 5,000 then it started making nasty rattle sounds. I parked it. another wreck came up with 7,200 miles and I paid $8,500. looks new inside. LH front frame pushed in about 2". the whole front body and radiator. so will take the first and second car and make one. estimate the cost a $6,000. really too much for a wrecked 02 but I love the model. I have had an awful time trying to get any shop to fix the car. it has been sitting for six months or more. so this week I pulled both motors and will splice 2" of frame. next week I will send it to a shop that can reset the codes and maybe the following week the body work will start. looking forward to driving it again. my only other running Maserati is a Bora. very different.