2 questions

i've got two questions, i hope someone can help...

1. i have a cat back exhuast (obx racing), and one of the bafflers in the muffler itself has gone bad. if i change only the muffler, will i lose performance? (i will be replacing it with a supertrap tunable muffler)

2. i recently lowered my car 2 inches in the front 1.5 in the rear, with a kyb gr2 gas strut/nuespeed race spring setup. it looks great, handles great, but squeaks like a bitch. i don't believe it to be the struts, my guess is the lower control arm is under so much more pressure that the universal joint bushing is squeaking. anyone have a similar problem?

ok i lied one more question... i was going to have my car aligned after lowering it, but it was all balanced out, and seemed fine on the road. should i anyhow, so i don't fuck my tires? or has anyone done it and been fine?

1. im not sure about loosing perfomance but if u think about it the cat back system was designed for the muffler it came with so if u put a new one on it sounds like u would get some kind of peromance change. But u are getting the supertrap so if there are any probs u can just adjust the muffler.
2.i dunno wat to say about that i have the same prob with BListien shock/nuespeed setup it jus doesnt bother me and iv had it for months now and everything runs good.
3. get it checked out, most allingment places that i know of do check ur camber allignement for free. so i say get them checked, better to find the problem now then 2 months down the road on the side of a freeway changing a blown out tire.

As long as you're not sealing the hole altogether, hacking off the old muffler and wielding on a new one will not make an impact. It's why I tell people to upgrade the whole catback and not just the muffler, hp gains from that alone are barely noticeable. Just find a high flow muffler, and you'll be fine.