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Here’s the Lightest, Freest Flowing, Quietest Exhaust for the NSX

When are you guys going to stop using the term "F1 sound"? Unless you can get the NSX to turn 23,000 rpms it isn't going to sound like a F1 engine no matter what you do to the exhaust! :rolleyes:

Sooo who's up for the next MOD of 23K rpms? Sorry I had to :biggrin:
 
Disregard my terrible welds.

raceexh.jpg
 
This is the setup from the last video, but with a Flowmaster 10 series muffler (single chamber, about 6" long) added. It sounds awesome 6k RPM and above:

<object width="400" height="300"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11031850&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11031850&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/11031850">Flowmaster 10 Series</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1744194">Dave</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

It took away some of the top end power and added 6 pounds, but made it sound a little better IMO. I think I'm going to remove the 6" Dynatech muffler and use this alone instead. After I get the clamps removed and everything welded, I'll get it weighed....

Dave
 
I had my local shop put together my exhaust. I picked out a Flowmax x-flow muffler and had them run the piping. The sound came out perfect for my tastes. It isn't to loud in the car at any rpm but has a great tone on the outside. It also doesn't have a drone to it when I am cruising. I will try to get a clip of it this weekend. (getting some work done on the car right now)
 
where did you buy the materials? I want to try this too! But no muffler?

I bought everything from summit racing (http://www.summitracing.com).

They have everything you need:
-Band Clamps (nice to have while you're trying to route everything)
-Prebent Mandrel Tubing
-Flex Hose
-Flanges
-Mufflers
-Catalytic Convertors

They ship most stuff from Georgia, so I basically had everything I ordered next day :smile:

Surprisingly, just the piping and an x-pipe or y-pipe will quiet everything pretty well. Generally, the larger the diameter of pipe, the louder it will be.

Also, everyone's tastes in sound and volume differ :biggrin:

Dave
 
All I have to say Dave is wow!

Hats off to you and all the homework. I thought you were just making an exhaust. LOL!! The sound down low in the RPM range is nasty! Cant wait to get a ride in this thing!

Thanks Chris!

It's taken a lot longer than I thought because my fabrication skills suck. Hopefully I can keep working on it this week and have it all welded this weekend!

Dave
 
Dave, to theorize a bit, and setting aside weight reduction priorities, do you think smaller diameter piping or perhaps a tighter Y-pipe can get rid of that low RPM rumble? Actually the rumble at low rpms kinda sounds like an open header. What do you think would need to be done to get rid of the low octave completely?

Perhaps another pipe, but as you said neck placement and length will probably be the tuning touch points.

In order to get rid of the low frequencies, you'll need to have a long enough muffler to capture the long, low frequency wavelengths and cancel them out. That's weight and space....

With this setup, the easiest way to "mask" the lower frequencies would be to unmuffle all the other frequencies to make them less aparent. You could do that by removing the cats (volume increase of frequencies ~750Hz and higher). Otherwise, to quiet everything a bit, you could go to a smaller diameter pipe.

On a stock engine, 1.75" from each of the cats back to a single 2.5" exit would probably be ideal for more of a typical use application from a sound volume and low-RPM torque point of view.

I went with the (2) 2.25" to a single 3" since, on this car, I personally prefer peak power at high RPM. I never "punch it" from a standstill - I would rather have the extra kick when I floor it 5k RPM's and above.

The nice thing about clamps and a cheap setup like this is that it only takes time to change it all around and try new things to suite your personal tastes :smile:

Dave
 
When are you guys going to stop using the term "F1 sound"? Unless you can get the NSX to turn 23,000 rpms it isn't going to sound like a F1 engine no matter what you do to the exhaust! :rolleyes:

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LOL that is so true. My gas powered RC car sounds more like that than my NSX. Actually I think my RC car has a the closest sound to a F1 car than any real car that is not a actual F1 car.
 
I follow your logic. thanks!
In order to get rid of the low frequencies, you'll need to have a long enough muffler to capture the long, low frequency wavelengths and cancel them out. That's weight and space....

With this setup, the easiest way to "mask" the lower frequencies would be to unmuffle all the other frequencies to make them less aparent. You could do that by removing the cats (volume increase of frequencies ~750Hz and higher). Otherwise, to quiet everything a bit, you could go to a smaller diameter pipe.

On a stock engine, 1.75" from each of the cats back to a single 2.5" exit would probably be ideal for more of a typical use application from a sound volume and low-RPM torque point of view.

I went with the (2) 2.25" to a single 3" since, on this car, I personally prefer peak power at high RPM. I never "punch it" from a standstill - I would rather have the extra kick when I floor it 5k RPM's and above.

The nice thing about clamps and a cheap setup like this is that it only takes time to change it all around and try new things to suite your personal tastes :smile:

Dave
 
Disregard my terrible welds.

I like it. Your welds are better than mine! At least if you have good penetration they can always be ground down :wink:

I'm curious though, as to why this and the Taitec exit on the drivers side instead of the passenger side? Is it because of the sway bar?

The way this and the Taitec is laid out, the rear bank exhaust has to make two 180 degree turns whereas the front bank has less than half the restriction (less than 180 degrees total). If the exhaust exited on the passenger side, then both banks would have equal losses - that's why I did mine that way (I don't have a rear sway bar so that opens up a lot of routing possibilities).

Dave
 
I had my local shop put together my exhaust. I picked out a Flowmax x-flow muffler and had them run the piping. The sound came out perfect for my tastes. It isn't to loud in the car at any rpm but has a great tone on the outside. It also doesn't have a drone to it when I am cruising. I will try to get a clip of it this weekend. (getting some work done on the car right now)

Cool, I hadn't heard of Flowmax, so after a little research it looks like a new Korean company that has a lot of exhaust products.

Could you also take a picture from the bottom too please? I'm curious how big the muffler is.

Basically, anything with a case ~35inches long or so will attenuate the low frequencies that drive the natural frequency of our cars. Borla makes an XR-1 muffler ~34 inches long that is straight through (basically), and Burns makes some nice rebuildable straight through mufflers in any configuration too. However, these are more than $300 and weigh a lot more than this arrangement.

This was kinda an engineering exercise based on sound theory to try to do something cheap, lightweight, free-flowing, yet doesn't resonate.

There are some threads on here about folks paying big $$ for these aftermarket exhausts and then a lot of them resonate at certain frequencies. This is a way to eliminate the resonance, and can be used on any exhaust that does.

Dave
 
I like it. Your welds are better than mine! At least if you have good penetration they can always be ground down :wink:

I'm curious though, as to why this and the Taitec exit on the drivers side instead of the passenger side? Is it because of the sway bar?

The way this and the Taitec is laid out, the rear bank exhaust has to make two 180 degree turns whereas the front bank has less than half the restriction (less than 180 degrees total). If the exhaust exited on the passenger side, then both banks would have equal losses - that's why I did mine that way (I don't have a rear sway bar so that opens up a lot of routing possibilities).

Dave

Not really sure why I chose drivers side. Probably from looking at the Tiatec and just old preferences from owning so many CRXs with the exhaust exiting on the drivers side.
 
Here's another round :redface:

This is just the 10 Series Flowmaster.

-Low Restriction (3" piping downstream of collector, short 6" long 10series Flowmaster muffler)
-Lightweight (11 pounds)
-No resonance at any RPM's
-Cheap ($200)

I'm still iterating though... Almost there. The last segment in this clip is a no-load, steady 4.5k RPM driveby.

<object width="400" height="300"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11134252&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11134252&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/11134252">Flowmaster 2</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1744194">Dave</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
 
That sounds really awesome man! Cant wait to hear this thing in person!
 
I made this one a few years ago and the cross-over solves all the issues with droning and makes the sound very high pitched. With the cats on it was perfect, with the cats off I have to run 12 inch resonators in their place.

http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/showpost.php?p=535361&postcount=21

Nice! I don't know why some of the cross-over designs have bad resonation (like GruppeM and mine) and some don't (yours and Angus' AP-X).

It seems like if you get a ~100Hz frequency from the exhaust, it would resonate with the natural frequency of the spaceframe. The bigger volume mufflers (around 30" long or so) would cancel this frequency out so it's not an issue, but you and Angus have short (like 20") canisters on there. I need that ~35" long tube on mine to cancel it out. I'm thinking about switching to an aluminum resonator tube to lower the weight.

I'm using stock exhaust hanger locations and rubbers so that shouldn't be the problem....



That sounds really awesome man! Cant wait to hear this thing in person!

Thanks Chris! You'll have to stop by sometime. I just bought another muffler and some mandrel piping off Summit... Getting ready for another iteration :rolleyes: Gina and the girls are going to Brazil in May so I'll be free to spend a lot of time on this and the diffusor!

Dave
 
Nice! I don't know why some of the cross-over designs have bad resonation (like GruppeM and mine) and some don't (yours and Angus' AP-X).
If I was to speculate I think a lot of the drone is cancelled out because of the higher curvature of both Angus' and jdnsx's design specifically in the X-pipe section. Again, i'm just speculating here with no real scientific basis to it all (hey, i'm bored today at work) but it looks like both yours and the GruppeM design is more a straight flow-thru that happens to meet in the middle vs. having any real 45deg+ bends in it.

V3_exhaust_front.jpg
 
If I was to speculate I think a lot of the drone is cancelled out because of the higher curvature of both Angus' and jdnsx's design specifically in the X-pipe section. Again, i'm just speculating here with no real scientific basis to it all (hey, i'm bored today at work) but it looks like both yours and the GruppeM design is more a straight flow-thru that happens to meet in the middle vs. having any real 45deg+ bends in it.

Good hypothesis!

After the initial thrill of driving around with a sportier exhaust note has worn off, I'm back to wanting a quieter setup.

Unfortunately, even putting on the least restrictive Flowmaster to quiet it down substantially reduced the power. From what I've seen, Flowmasters flow about the same as a turbo style muffler. A straight through baffled or perforated muffler will flow better, but will be louder.

There's really no way to have a high-performance quiet muffler unless you go to an active system with a bypass (Ferrari, Corvette, etc).

So, I'll be taking off the Flowmaster and short straight-through mufflers and putting on something else with a cutout. My goal is to still keep it simple and lightweight.


Like ryu said, I think the crossovers in other designs are restrictive enough to "blend" the exhaust pulses a little more than my arrangement that offers a quicker, easier path out the tailpipe. That "blending" is also what makes them sound better too. The GruppeM also sounds pretty good too though and is still such a unique sound than any other out there. I would like to get a hold of the canister they used because then I could probably get mine to sound like that (but without the resonance) :frown:

Oh well. Round 4 coming in a few days :smile:

Dave
 
I just took off all the piping I had downstream of my (2) 2.25" to a single 3" collector and installed a 3" Borla XS.

It was the quietest setup yet, but it still felt more powerful than with the Flowmaster 10series on it. The Borla is a straight through perforated tube that has a gentle bend to it. I chose the center/offset configuration since it would have the least restriction of what Borla offers (opposed to an offset/offset arrangement).

It doesn't have the unique Flowmaster tone, but it flows and performs better.

The resonance between 2-2.5k was there of course (I didn't have my long resonator installed for this quickie test), but it was more subdued than with the straight pipes.

I've ordered a slightly smaller 2" OD pipe for my resonator, and this is made out of lighter aluminum :smile:

Dave
 
Working on another iteration :redface:

This will be quiet and emissions-friendly for my daily-driving duties, but should (hopefully) sound awesome when opened up!

Dave

Plan.jpg
 
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