Everyone here seems pretty intelligent, so I'll bring up a question I've had for awhile now. What does everyone think about the bellow kit? Something about it seems a little fishy. I read somewhere (i think maybe on the web page) that people actually lost some HP with a full exhaust? Maybe I'm just going crazy from the 16 hours of travel I just got back from ... eh, oh well ... just let me know what you guys think about the kit. Some people don't trust it ( I can't remember their reasons off the top of my head ), and I'm a broke ass college kid anyways, so it looks like I'll get to see how it fairs on people's cars before I ever get a chance to afford it


http://www.4.0performance.com/whipple.html

 

As far as losing HP on a full exhaust, you need the mods to back it up. For example: Let's say you take a stock V6 Camaro and put headers and a 3" exhaust on it, and that's it. The people that do this automatically think that they are going to be fast, but that is not so. Sure they will have an aggressive sound, but will not have the numbers to back it up. These people will be losing HP because there is less and less restriction and will not have the backpressure that forced induction provides. With forced induction, like in my case, the optimum mods that you would want to do are Cold Air Induction, headers, full exhaust. For naturally aspirated engines, if you are going for performance, it would be wise to get heads p/p; cold air intake; cam; colder plugs; and then do headers and exhaust. Believe it or not, you want to be very careful about full exhaust and headers. Like I said, I have seen many a person slap an aggressive sounding exhaust on and call it fast. It's posers like that that enthusiasts need to steer clear from. Well, thats my two pennies. Hope I didn't confuse anyone.

-Dan

 

backpressure is bad.. on any performance oriented car.. biggest myth of all lol.

*EDIT: I dont exactly understand what your saying, but FI obviously create "backpressure" on the intake side.. "positive"..

 

Backpressure? Is that the same thing as the result after eating at Taco Bell? Or Wendy's?

 

damn........for 3 grand....and only in the HIGH 13's?! i think i would try to make something else go faster....for that kind of money!

 

This isnt true, and it's entirely dependant upon the car.

 

How would you have? You didn't say anything confusing or difficult to comprehend.

NIck

 

open exhaust on a turbo engine -- good.

The turbine itself already produces more than enough back-pressure for the engine.

Open exhaust on a supercharged engine -- dunno. The benefits from the scavenging effects of having slight backpressure may not be significant when you have positive manifold pressure already.

 

Once again it depends on the type of supercharger, and platform. On my setup with a roots type blower, it is very beneficial to open the exhaust, as the stock ford design is freakishly restrictive. Doing so helps prolong the life of my headgaskets, as well as adding a few hp. The only possible drawback would be losing a couple bars of boost, but that can be easily overcome by overdriving the Supercharger. I have no idea what the effects would be with other forms of superchargers though.

EDIT: I am sleepy, replace "bars of boost" with "pounds of boost". I am teh suk.

 

losing a COUPLE of bars of boost? damn....that is a lot......