Category Archives: Exhaust

SuperTrapp Performance Tunable Exhaust

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Going through some bins in the garage this weekend, I found several spare discs for the Supertrapp performance tunable exhaust as mounted on bowtie6.  You can see the two discs in the picture above, towards the left.

I’ve written about the exhaust in a prior post (Click HERE) so I won’t repeat myself.  However, the idea behind the SuperTrapp tips is to control backpressure and noise.  This is accomplished by adding or removing those discs to the end tip of the exhaust.  The more discs, the less backpressure and the higher the decibels; consequently the less discs, the quieter it gets but the more backpressure accumulates.

So back to the two discs.  I got the notion to move things around as well as adding the two spare discs.  Here is what the two exhaust pipes really look like:

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So I decided to remove a disc from the right side pipe and add the others to the left side pipe.  As you can see, the left side comes out at a 90 degree angle from the main 3″ pipe.  So, I figured what the hell!  The worse thing that could happen is that it sounds like crap.

Well, much to my surprise the experiment has worked quite well.  Backpressure has been reduced, noise went up (but only during WOT) and overall acceleration feels better.  I know, this is all measured by what is transmitted via the seat to my arse.  Good enough for me.  I like it!

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bowtie6‘s Muffler

Looks like my last post about the muffler and exhaust has drawn some interest..

I’ve been asked for more info about the muffler.  Well here is the skinny:

Since the entire tubing is all stainless (this stuff was pricey) I figured the muffler should be stainless also.  The tubing is all 2.75″ and the muffler is stainless too.  This bad boy came from Speedway Motors and is called a “bullet muffler” (CLICK HERE for more info).  They have several options on finish.  Mine is the “non-polished” version.

Something to keep in mind:  as nice as this muffler is, it is not quite enough to tame the Ecotec.  When the VVT kicks in, the Ecotec really starts to wail.  That is why we are running the Supertrapp tips at the end of the pipe.  Speaking about the Supertrapps, I have been experimenting with the number of discs.  With Supertrapps, the more discs you add the less restrictive the exhaust is, at the expense of noise.  With less discs, it gets more muffled but backpressure increases.  Right now, I am using 12 discs – six on each tip – and this puts one hell of a smile on my face past 4500 revs.  I’ve ordered more stainless discs and plan to add at least two more per side.  We shall see how they turn out.

 

Exhaust Changes…

Yesterday we took the exhaust pipe apart for a modification.  In the previous post, I made mention of what the exhaust system looks like and I had the picture on the left showing the SuperTrapp tips.  As you can see, the whole affair ends underneath the trunk floor.  We did this for several reasons, but mainly because it hid the exhaust from sight. However, even though this was with the V6, somehow exhaust “smell” would end up in the cab.  So we had to make a small change.

Since I dropped the whole thing, I thought it would be nice to document the way it looks in its entirety.  First, the following pictures show the flange that is bolted to the flange on the header’s collector.  This is where the bung was welded to hold the O2 sensor.

A copper gasket fits between the two flanges – the one shown above and the one on the header.  Why put the bung and 02 sensor on the exhaust side rather than the header?  The exhaust is much easier to remove than the header.  These four bolts holds the front part and at the rear two tabs fit inside two rubber hangers (see the picture at the very top), so the whole tube “floats”.

Moving along, this is the mid section:

There is a bend right below the O2 sensor, followed by a section that “swells” up a bit.  That is an inline resonator to reduce noise.  At first, on my cousin Jim’s TR4 we ran the exhaust without the resonator – just the SuperTrapp tips – and the thing ended up being way too loud.  The Ecotec has a killer shriek at around 3500 RPM’s when the VVT kicks in.  That is why we used this resonator. Here is another picture showing the area aft of the bend:

This section is between the elbow and resonator.  It looks crushed.  And yes it is.  I am sure questions will come up as to why this is done this way:  we wanted to make sure nothing was below the frame line.  This section of the exhaust had to clear some crossbracing on the frame and the transmision mounts.  Does it restrict things?  Not really.  This is 2.75″ stainless tubing.  Yes, we decided to make the whole thing out of stainless.  The tubing was a bit pricey, but this way we do it one time and not have to worry about it ever.

Finally, the end of the pipe looks like this:

Look close at the picture above.  Several things:  on the mid-left is one of the SuperTrapp ends.  On the top right (standing up) is the tube extension that we added to make the ends stick out a little further back.  And in the center is the tail end of the exhaust with the end flanges cut off.  You can see in the tube extension standing up, the flange is on the end resting on the work table.  Finally, you can see underneath the two split pipes the “hanger” that fits in the rubber donuts mounted on the frame that is used to hang the whole affair.

That is all that holds the pipes in place.  Simple and effective.

The picture above shows the new extension before being welded.  You can see the flange on the left where the SuperTrapp ends are affixed.  These are a bit of a pain to put in place since each has 8 screws, lockwashers and nuts.  Taks a little time but all good things do too.

So what does this all look like on the car?  Take a look:

We added about a foot to both ends of the exhaust.  Now, it sticks past the roll pan of the trunk and is a little more prominent.  We still clear the whole frame since the new frame follows the curve of the body and has a bit of a slope “up” past the diff.  Sure, not everybody is going to like it but then again it is my opinion that matters and I really dig it.

Practically speaking, the result of this small alteration turned out well.  No more scent of eau d’Smoked-T-Rex in the cabin and things are a bit quieter too.  With the exhaust now past the body instead of underneath the trunk, the exhaust note is a bit more muffled.  This is still loud under WOT though and that is the way I like it.