Before/After dyno of stock 3.0L with an ARK exhaust

[jdc1687]

Hey guys,

I purchased my 91, and it was bone stock. After I got the car I had a good tuneup done to make sure everything was running right.. It now has 42,000 miles.

Items done for tuneup:

1. Timing Belt
2. Valve Adjustment
3. Oil/Filter
4. Fuel Filter
5. Uni Airfilter

Some time passed and I purchased an ARK exhaust, but I wanted to get a good baseline, and be able to show the performance gains on a 3.0L with just an exhaust. There has been some debate as to the effectiveness of adding an exhaust to the 3.0L because the car does not have headers, but as you'll soon see, this debate can be settled.

I brought the car to New England Dyno and Tune in Worchester MA, soon to be moving closer to Douglas, but I'm not sure exactly where. I highly recommend this shop for any kind of performance tuning, John knows his way around anything that breathes air and fuel. Here is a shot of him:

Exactly what happened:

1. Drove car 30 miles to dyno shop
2. Waited around 10 minutes; put the car on the dyno
3. Did 2 baseline pulls in 4th gear, nearly identical HP and TQ, 239hp and 187Ft-Lbs
4. Took car off dyno; sprayed exhaust with a garden hose to cool it down
5. Installed the exhaust in about 30 minutes, no problems, other than my shoulder getting tired.
6. Took the car for a little beat ride, about 5 miles.
7. Waited around another hour or so; everything was still hot so I just let it idle for a bit to warm it back up
8. Put it on the Dyno; did two runs in 4th gear, 2 runs in 3rd gear. All four resulted in very similar numbers: 251hp, ~192ft-lbs

The Results:

All of my 4th gear pulls, to show the standard deviation, I did a couple in 3rd gear just for fun since these were all so consistent.

Pics of the install:

A shot with my friend's F355 conveniently located

John and I looking like dorks while looking at the results

 

[Mojorator]

AWESOME results..thanks for the graphs!!

Mike

 

[nsxsupra]

There has been some debate as to the effectiveness of adding an exhaust to the 3.0L because the car does not have headers, but as you'll soon see, this debate can be settled.

Congratulations

The debate actually was settled long ago. I told you so before there are great results with Anytime, GTLW, Flowmaster, Dali on prime for 3.0L without header. Never believe misconceptions :smile:.

Now you experienced it the first hand. You still got one more debate to settle:wink:

 

[NetViper]

There has been some debate as to the effectiveness of adding an exhaust to the 3.0L because the car does not have headers, but as you'll soon see, this debate can be settled.

I don't really every recall any debates on this. It is a fact that swapping the exhaust on either a 3.0 or 3.2 will make a difference. Anytime shows 11 + HP difference at the wheels.

There is a debate however on how much power aftermarket headers make on a 97+ car because Honda changed the design.

Anyway, Looks like you got some good power and I bet it sounds sweet! Enjoy!

 

[Climberao]

:biggrin: Have had my ARK on my 95 for over 2 months. I felt a difference in power but was always curious of the actual gain. Thanks for getting the dyno results and it's great to know that the results appear to be consistent across the band :biggrin:

The sound of the ARK is extremely pleasing low and throaty and it also looks great.

Thanks again fo the great post :smile:

 

[Osiris_x11]

Good return on investment!

hmmm... Here's how I generally look at mods', power/perf' gains:

$600'ish for ARK dual-canister exhaust

12'ish rwhp gained

So that's roughly $50/rwhp. For the NSX, that is a fabulous $/hp mod'!

I think the only other bolt-on mod' for the NSX that can give power below the cost ratio shown above maybe an aftermarket ECU-chip, but there are many chips out there and only 1 or 2 have shown credible gains.

 

[lhpnsx]

Re: Good return on investment!

I've been on the quest for the right exhast package for my stock 05 NSX...hadn't heard of the ARK..any thoughts on comparisons to the Taitec LW or JTC, and also to comptech's?

NetViper...no headers for 05? Or do upgrades not provide much gain? I thought that they still did make a pretty big gain, in conjunction with exhaust.

 

[djdrock]

Thanks for the info, as I just put an ARK exhaust on mine. :biggrin:

 

[dlynes]

so looks like they let ya dyno ur own car huh? nice..i dyno'd mine last summer...put 270 whp wonder if after new clutch and major service if it will run better...?