So far, I am currently driving the car without these two pieces and it seems to be fine, but I am in the process of fabricating the existing heat shield and designing my own mini strut bar thingy out of an aluminum flat bar.

If you are a newbie, don't be afraid of doing this mod. These two pieces are causing issues by only 1 cm or 2 cm. You will see it when you do this mod.

 

I too was initially disappointed with the coupe mid mod at first but just like another member said, after the ecu adjusted, the exhaust tone got even deeper. It sounds especially deep in the summer months to me. I just installed an HR Y pipe and that also brought out more growl. I'm now thinking of getting an HKS muffler but I think it my be too loud...