| As some of you know we have been doing a lot of fresh testing on 3 inch exhaust products for the Z32. (More on the testing later) One of the pieces of the puzzle is the mufflers, We had asked Sebring to build us 3 inch offset center dual tip mufflers that look like the 2.5" we currently sell.
A few months ago Sebring delivered us some sample 3 inch inlet mufflers .........
I took one look at the mufflers and refused to use them and fast Intentions agreed with my finding.
The problem with the mufflers is as follows........
Sebring made the muffler by just changing the 2.5" inlet pipe and core to 3 inch.....They left the same dual tip 2.5" collector in the rear of the muffler that was used in the 2.5" muffler.
So if you look inside the inlet of the muffler before the pipe is welded on, You can clearly see the 3 inch core is hitting a 2.5" wall going into the dual tip collector.
We are currently waiting on a new muffler with a design I submitted to Sebring.
The reason I am making this post is because I learned the shop that use to build some of our exhaust products is selling these mufflers as part of what they are calling a 3 inch system.
The way the current Sebring 3 inch muffler is built causes turbulence and effectively makes it flow less than the current full 2.5" muffler. Releasing a product that you know is not right is something I will not do just to get a product out or make a sale.
Letting something like this go figuring no one will notice is a perfect example of why it was necessary for me to switch to Fast Intentions to build our exhaust products.
A little bit about where we are at with new exhaust products............
We have over 250 passes on the dyno testing just about every variation on exhaust we could think of and we have found amazing gains going to 3 inch with a proper transition down pipe. How the down pipe is built makes or breaks the 3 inch. We have a awesome design now with tons of data at many different boost levels showing gains from the time you touch the gas pedal.
The current challenge is making the new parts in the most cost effective way.
Here is a little on where we have come from........ Many years ago we tested the 3 inch (OPEN) style down pipes against 2.5" open down pipes with full 3" and full 2.5" systems. At that tie we found the 2.5" offered better mid range and low end power over the 3" parts that were available.
The old open 3 " pipes were made very poorly in that the 3" opening was larger then the opening on the back of the turbo......What they did to make this work was drill a hole in the pipe and place a dowel inside the pipe behind the turbo wheel so that the upper bolt could be used.
As you can imagine this caused a lot of turbulence and was probably the reason the 3 inch systems seem to not work as well. This is why we always liked 2.5" parts on the Z. Back in the day people with 3 inch open down pipes were switching to the open 2.5" with great results.
The reason I wanted to make split down pipes was because I saw a newer turbo design that had a divider built into it between the turbo wheel and wastegate......I heard the divider made the turbo much more efficient :-)
I thought to myself if the divider makes a significant difference, I bet that adding a divider to the down pipe flange and keeping the division longer with separate pipe would offer even a greater benefit.
I really wanted to try this right away :-)
At the time I was working with Labree and I ran the idea across the owner......
He told me it was too hard to build and it would not work. He also said why change it when the open style are selling faster then we can build them. This really rubbed me the wrong way because I wanted to sell what worked the best!
Not too long after that Labree hired a new fabricator..........Labree had the new fabricator build me set of the open style 4 bolt down pipes we were selling at the time. When I went to pick up that set of down pipes I could not believe how poor they were :-/ .........Basically it looked like a kid was fooling around with a welder the first time!
The welds looked like someone threw up on them and the u-bend joints were not square with each other!!!!
I told Labree that I could not sell that set of down pipes because the quality was too poor. His reply shocked me!!!
Labree said "There is nothing wrong with those down pipes and they will flow just fine." He then told me if I did not buy that set of down pipes he would NOT make me another set!
This was after a few years of doing business with him where I was bringing in more than half of the work being done by his shop. (Keep in mind when I met Labree he was a one man shop doing crush bent cat backs for $250 by himself, He now had 3 employees!)
At the time I was stuck and needed him to build more product, So I ended up buying the horrible downpipes with the promise I would never get another set that looked like that. When I got back to the shop the first thing I did was throw the down pipes in the trash as I never wanted anyone to ever see them (Trust me they were worse then you might imagine).
At this point I really wanted to go somewhere else to build my parts and I really wanted to test Split downpipes......
Sooooo I got together with a good friend I had known since High school and we got together and built the first 4 bolt split down pipes. We tested them and were amazed by the results!! So build them we did........
The problem was my friends shop was already busy and he could not keep up with the load because of contacts he already had............
I still used Labree for test pipes, But I was making the split down pipes with my friend.
A few months into offering the split down pipes I get a call from a friend telling me Labree is advertising split down pipes on TT.Net.............
I take a look and he was advertising split down pipes and well below what he was selling me the open down pipes for that were much cheaper to build!!!!
Soooo I go over to Labree's and talk with him.....We came to an agreement because I needed to build more than my friend could build and he was now willing to make the split down pipes. I figured it was easier to work with him than have direct competition with a manufacturer. Much happened after that, But I think the above paints the picture fairly well. I have always tried to be friendly and work through things, When Labree's employee's all wanted to leave because of reasons that were more than obvious, It was not difficult to choose where to go. I apologize that I had enough build up inside me that I felt the need to vent to you all.
I really only was posting to let you all know about the mufflers and to also let you know we are working very hard to get you new products with real gains.........My fingers just would not stop :-)
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