Why is nobody making catted UEL headers except ft86speedfactory?

[FirestormFRS]

Originally Posted by Venator

Well clearly the HUGE wait time for the FT86 Speed Factory should show that there is a consumer interest out there...

The lead time is there because the market is limited at best. Sure they may get 50 orders real quick but long term the demand will peter out. Can't go and order an asston of material and hire two or three fabricators then have no work for them after the initial rush. Smart business model though it may cost them a few sales in the short term.

[Dephective]

Originally Posted by Basket Case

Any car running forced induction will benefit from breathing better...fi isnt just about boost levels, it is about flow. Your engine is an air pump, and the better it flows, the more power it makes.

This is only the case with FI where you have positive displacement before combustion. In N/A motors, scavenging is key to moving air in and out, not flow. Run open header on a N/A motor vs properly sized piping and see how much slower the open header runs.

As for Catted headers in general.
1. Defeats the purpose of a properly designed collector.
2. Reduces the overall potential gains, regardless of whether its "currently the best on the market", it still isn't as good as it could be.
3. A cat is not a muffler. it will only change the pitch of the resonance. Put in a resonator further down the piping somewhere if you want to cry about it.
4. By replacing a working cat with another cat is no different than running no cat at all in the eyes of the law if you are stopped, regardless of location. Not that they would take you to court over it, but that is about as ignorant an excuse for a cat as it gets.
5. For those that have inspections, stop being so damn lazy and swap stock back in for inspection if you are trying to "game the system". I'm not saying break the law, but you have obviously already made that decision for yourself when you are considering buying ANY aftermarket header or front pipe.
6. If you haven't gotten the point yet, #6 is here for me to tell you that its pointless, and all of your "but"s are not founded on anything. You can argue until your face is blue, but it won't make you right.

The only exception is if your motorsport class ALLOWS aftermarket headers but REQUIRES a cat to be in the factory location.

[kodyo]

@Dephective
Some people want a little performance boost without getting a tune, which is a completely valid point you left out. It's not always about maximizing gains.

[Luis_GT]

Originally Posted by Dephective

This is only the case with FI where you have positive displacement before combustion. In N/A motors, scavenging is key to moving air in and out, not flow. Run open header on a N/A motor vs properly sized piping and see how much slower the open header runs.

As for Catted headers in general.
1. Defeats the purpose of a properly designed collector.
2. Reduces the overall potential gains, regardless of whether its "currently the best on the market", it still isn't as good as it could be.
3. A cat is not a muffler. it will only change the pitch of the resonance. Put in a resonator further down the piping somewhere if you want to cry about it.
4. By replacing a working cat with another cat is no different than running no cat at all in the eyes of the law if you are stopped, regardless of location. Not that they would take you to court over it, but that is about as ignorant an excuse for a cat as it gets.
5. For those that have inspections, stop being so damn lazy and swap stock back in for inspection if you are trying to "game the system". I'm not saying break the law, but you have obviously already made that decision for yourself when you are considering buying ANY aftermarket header or front pipe.
6. If you haven't gotten the point yet, #6 is here for me to tell you that its pointless, and all of your "but"s are not founded on anything. You can argue until your face is blue, but it won't make you right.

The only exception is if your motorsport class ALLOWS aftermarket headers but REQUIRES a cat to be in the factory location.

some of us hate the smell of an uncatted setup, if I have to sacrifice 2 WHP with a catted setup to avoid the putrid smell I will.

[Sleepless]

Originally Posted by JDLAutoDesign

Dont know if you guys caught this in our exhaust thread

As someone else pointed out, a major reason for some of us to want a catted header is to minimize drone and loudness. In that context, I'd have to see a Dyno on an otherwise stock exhaust with a tune before I'd consider buying this.

[F1fletch]

Originally Posted by Luis_GT

some of us hate the smell of an uncatted setup, if I have to sacrifice 2 WHP with a catted setup to avoid the putrid smell I will.

Amen! Even though it may be technically illegal spewing out pollutants is not cool when you have a choice. If I had a catted header (and I don't yet), I would feel much better knowing my car would easily pass smog without the visual critique.

[stockysnail]

Originally Posted by Jesse@JDLAutodesign

The high flow spun metallic cats are not very restrictive IMO. They will still make good numbers. I have a catted UEL here, has never been tested or posted about, weren't sure if we wanted to pursue them. The cat required for it is more expensive than the one used in the EL header, the runner layout is also quite a bit different than our non catted UEL. There's also no absolute guarantee that you won't eventually throw a CEL on stock tune nor pass emissions in places like California. Basically we weren't sure if the price increase could be justified with the only guarantee being maybe passing a visual inspection and reducing noise/rasp.

If you would have released both I would have bought the catted UEL even if it cost more. I wouldn't have had to sell my exhaust (Nameless) because it was way too loud with the catless headers (sounded great in spite of the loudness). Now I have the Q300, which seems to be one of the very few that sounds good and is quiet enough to go up the hills I drive on daily.

[Dephective]

Originally Posted by Luis_GT

some of us hate the smell of an uncatted setup, if I have to sacrifice 2 WHP with a catted setup to avoid the putrid smell I will.

Leave stock front pipe or buy a catted front pipe. Cat further down stream AFTER the collector is better than directly on top of it, if you must have have one.

Still no argument for the catted header.

[Luis_GT]

Originally Posted by Dephective

Leave stock front pipe or buy a catted front pipe. Cat further down stream AFTER the collector is better than directly on top of it, if you must have have one.

Still no argument for the catted header.

Provide me some real data trhat says the cat ruins the header. You're argument about it ruining the colector is wortless untill you give me a solid graph noting the difference

[Dephective]

Originally Posted by Luis_GT

Provide me some real data trhat says the cat ruins the header. You're argument about it ruining the colector is wortless untill you give me a solid graph noting the difference

Never said it "ruins the header". I said it defeats the purpose of a proper collector.

Design a 4-1 merge collector that has angles at specific degrees optimized for exhaust gas velocity and CFM (that works in conjunction with one another) and then put layers of a mesh-work barrier directly in front of it.

Tell me why that makes sense? Regardless of how little difference it is on paper, it still doesn't make sense why you would do that, when you can have a cat later in the system that would have less of an effect on performance and you will have maintained the engineering of a proper collector (assuming your header has one).

[Luis_GT]

Originally Posted by Dephective

Never said it "ruins the header". I said it defeats the purpose of a proper collector.

Design a 4-1 merge collector that has angles at specific degrees optimized for exhaust gas velocity and CFM (that works in conjunction with one another) and then put layers of a mesh-work barrier directly in front of it.

Tell me why that makes sense? Regardless of how little difference it is on paper, it still doesn't make sense why you would do that, when you can have a cat later in the system that would have less of an effect on performance and you will have maintained the engineering of a proper collector (assuming your header has one).

FT86SF has an uncatted version of their header, maybe one day someone will test them and compare, if there is no difference, then your argument is moot.

And now JDL is bringing out their catted UEL, if the difference is nill, again, your argument is moot.

[Dephective]

Originally Posted by Luis_GT

FT86SF has an uncatted version of their header, maybe one day someone will test them and compare, if there is no difference, then your argument is moot.

And now JDL is bringing out their catted UEL, if the difference is nill, again, your argument is moot.

The only way the differences would be moot is if the design stays EXACTLY the same with the only difference being the cat. I know for a fact that the catted JDL UEL is a completely different design than their current uncatted UEL. At that point, the differences (good or bad) would have no way to be attributed to whether the cat was there or not.

It also comes down to tuning, if you are running the same exact tune on the same car with same timing. Stock tune is not valid here. Or perhaps run a degree or 2 more timing without a cat? Who knows.

[Luis_GT]

Originally Posted by Dephective

The only way the differences would be moot is if the design stays EXACTLY the same with the only difference being the cat. I know for a fact that the catted JDL UEL is a completely different design than their current uncatted UEL. At that point, the differences (good or bad) would have no way to be attributed to whether the cat was there or not.

It also comes down to tuning, if you are running the same exact tune on the same car with same timing. Stock tune is not valid here. Or perhaps run a degree or 2 more timing without a cat? Who knows.

FT86SF header is exactly the same catted and uncatted.

[kodyo]

Originally Posted by Dephective

Leave stock front pipe or buy a catted front pipe. Cat further down stream AFTER the collector is better than directly on top of it, if you must have have one.

Still no argument for the catted header.

You have a bad case of selective reading if you think there are no valid arguments for wanting a catted header after reading this whole thread.