Nameless Performance Equal Length Stepped Header

[Spaceywilly]

Originally Posted by Calum

Jason, you keep this up and you'll need one of these.

Ugh, this brings back some painful memories

[Jason@Nameless]

Originally Posted by Spaceywilly

Ugh, this brings back some painful memories

I promise not to put anything that requires radio frequency into your exhaust systems. :-D

[Jason@Nameless]

Originally Posted by mike2100

I've been slowly coming to a similar conclusion. The dip is there but I only feel it when I'm revving through it, from low rpm to high rpm. You are right - in high performance driving you'll never see that low of an RPM. And any tuning that removes the low rpm torque bump will take away the around town low rpm driving fun.

This car really has 2 personalities: one with low rpm grunt for around town and highway spirited driving, and one for all-out balls to the wall track driving.

The dip only rears its head when tranisitioning between the 2 personalities.

On Tainen's car, the dip is still perceptible, but absolutely nothing like the hell that is driving a stock car in this behavior. Even with the dip characteristic in our new dyno graph, the car now has enough torque to remove that pain point far beyond its behavior at the power levels generated at stock.

Jason

[empower-auto]

At work without time to really bomb through 13 pages - What is removing that dip the most? The header or the other components? I know SARD made a ton of extra HP with a mid-pipe or something.

[R/TErnie]

Originally Posted by Jason@Nameless

R/TErnie, I'm not entirely sure why you think it's tough to design a header around an engine that cannot be tuned yet.

Port velocity based is based on the kinetic energy of the gas leaving the port and the volume leaving the cylinder. If you improve the VE of the engine by tuning it... add several degrees of timing in the known dip and give it more fuel you're going to increase the combustion temperature, cylinder pressure, VE, and your blow down pressure. This will all change how your header scavenges the port. Just saying you may be compromising your top end power to support the mid range, which will be fine once the engine is able to be tuned. I've done a lot of Engine Dyno work and designed a bunch of header, intake manifold, and cam packages... It's hard enough to pick the right compromise when you have good data right in front of you. My suggestion would be don't throw away any of your old designs... and break them out and re-test them after you're able to tune the engine.

So I guess all I'm saying is... keep making new designs. Try making a single change to the header you have with the assumption that it will hurt performance and validate your theory. I always find the most interesting stuff when I do counter-intuitive work... like working on TDI swapped Vanagons.

[Jason@Nameless]

Do you have a TDI swapped Vanagon??? I have an EJ22 Swapped Syncro!!! We need to hang out and have a beer. :-D

We have committed to not cannibalizing any of our designs so far. I follow where you're going here. This area is fairly new for us, but we're quick learners.

Seriously, we should hang out and talk shop.

Jason

[Jason@Nameless]

Originally Posted by empower-auto

At work without time to really bomb through 13 pages - What is removing that dip the most? The header or the other components? I know SARD made a ton of extra HP with a mid-pipe or something.

The header does great, but does even better with the stuff behind it. We tested the first header (1.5-1.625) with a stock car and saw power at the top and midrange but haven't had a chance to test the new header on its own. As soon as we pull it off and switch to the next design we'll throw it on another local stock car here and get some dyno data with the header alone. I need to look into the SARD parts (and their tagline 'Be Improved by SARD'). Always have loved them. Met up with one of their silicone manufacturers (Contitech / Continental in Korea) when I worked at a previous shop. They pull out the stops when it comes to quality. IIRC, their silicone couplers were like 4.5mm thick and had 3 tightly stacked layers of reinforcement. Doing it right.

Jason

[Tainen]

Originally Posted by jedibow

Taiman, would you please update everyone on how the torque dip has changed since the exhaust intall, and what your current driving impressions are regarding said torque dip?
G

Hey Jedi.

Jason touched on it briefly in a previous reply, but he's absolutely correct. The torque dip is 100% livable now with the headers. The axleback/downpipe smoothed it out a bit more, and made me rage at it a little less, but the headers... the headers made me pretty much not care about the torque dip anymore. Yeah it's still there, but- the car has as much torque in the dip as it used to have at the top end now (with all the other exhaust components on it). So the whole car feels faster, and that torque dip feels stronger by far. Case in point, on the handling oval video that I posted earlier, I was braking down to around 3-3.5k and wringing it out to around 6.5k at the end of the straights. I basically was living in the core of the torque curve that whole video. It still felt fun as hell, and accelerated well- not like in stock form AT ALL. I was able to break it loose while in the torque valley easily. (yes, I know I was in the rain. )

Originally Posted by empower-auto

At work without time to really bomb through 13 pages - What is removing that dip the most? The header or the other components? I know SARD made a ton of extra HP with a mid-pipe or something.

The header, for sure. If someone else made power with the mid pipe, I'm confused about that. Nameless has dyno'd with and without the midpipe on two seperate occasions now and gained zero power, and it just added a ton of buzzy rasp and drone.

Also, note for everyone: Go change your page view settings. If this is page 13 for you, go make it 50 posts per page or something. much easier to view the forums that way.


edit: Jason, when are you going to start selling the catted headers to customers? I feel like that header design is complete for people that want a catted header, the only issue is adding a resonator to the downpipe. But maybe people want to buy the header now and get the downpipe once the resonator issues are all figgered out? Or a header/axleback combo for now. That seems like a legit way to make some good power incrementally while waiting for the downpipe.

[R/TErnie]

TDI swapped syncro vanagon! It's not mine... I just did a bunch of fab work and plumbing on it.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by Tainen

edit: Jason, when are you going to start selling the catted headers to customers? I feel like that header design is complete for people that want a catted header, the only issue is adding a resonator to the downpipe. But maybe people want to buy the header now and get the downpipe once the resonator issues are all figgered out? Or a header/axleback combo for now. That seems like a legit way to make some good power incrementally while waiting for the downpipe.

I'm waiting to see the catless header dynos.. even though for STX I'd need a more stock like header.. but then I could just say screw SCCA autocross and run with the more fun local groups anyways

[Dimman]

Originally Posted by R/TErnie

Port velocity based is based on the kinetic energy of the gas leaving the port and the volume leaving the cylinder. If you improve the VE of the engine by tuning it... add several degrees of timing in the known dip and give it more fuel you're going to increase the combustion temperature, cylinder pressure, VE, and your blow down pressure. This will all change how your header scavenges the port. Just saying you may be compromising your top end power to support the mid range, which will be fine once the engine is able to be tuned. I've done a lot of Engine Dyno work and designed a bunch of header, intake manifold, and cam packages... It's hard enough to pick the right compromise when you have good data right in front of you. My suggestion would be don't throw away any of your old designs... and break them out and re-test them after you're able to tune the engine.

So I guess all I'm saying is... keep making new designs. Try making a single change to the header you have with the assumption that it will hurt performance and validate your theory. I always find the most interesting stuff when I do counter-intuitive work... like working on TDI swapped Vanagons.

Alternatively the current scavenging is not as good in that range hurting VE and the ability to get good fuel/air mixing. This causes a reduced flame speed and the need to advance timing to make peak cylinder pressure at ~14 degrees ATDC.

If the cause is local pressure differentials caused by intake or exhaust acoustics, the AVCS will probably be adjusting in that range. Everyone is calling this a 'dip' based on relative to the rest of the curve. But realistically it is still making good torque there for a 2.0L NA motor. So it's possible that this is just a zero scavenging zone, as opposed to bikes where pipe acoustics can create their flat-spots by 'bad' scavenging like double carburetion and whatnot...

[rice_classic]

Where does the catalytic converter come from for the aftermarket catted header? Is it stock? Is it as functional as OEM?

I might like sports cars but that doesn't mean I hate the environment. I do have interest in a cat that still functions as opposed to one that's "just there for the california police."

I've owned 9 vehicles and none of them had the catalytic converter in their the header (mostly Hondas), so I'm confused about how this works and the costs involved.

[Jason@Nameless]

Originally Posted by rice_classic

Where does the catalytic converter come from for the aftermarket catted header? Is it stock? Is it as functional as OEM?

I might like sports cars but that doesn't mean I hate the environment. I do have interest in a cat that still functions as opposed to one that's "just there for the california police."

I've owned 9 vehicles and none of them had the catalytic converter in their the header (mostly Hondas), so I'm confused about how this works and the costs involved.

It's a high flow catalyst from Magnaflow. We have over 200 of them in customers hands in some of the most aggressive applications (extremely high EGT supercharged XJR & XKR Jaguars) and have had zero failures in the field. It it is a high flow unit, and is 49 state legal to pass emissions, but it's certainly a good catalyst and scrubs exhaust very well. Anything upstream of a factory catalytic converter is illegal for emissions in California. California Air Resources Board qualification for systems involving a catalyst are a nightmare, specifically because if ANY of the literature on the catalyst calls it high performance or high flow it is categorically illegal in CA.

Use of the primary catalyst in the header is certainly a compromise in this application as it limits the available length of the secondary pipes in the header. Our goal is to use O2 sensor extenders with the catless design and plumb them forward and aft of the secondary catalyst in our overpipe/midpipe combination. Either that or port both of the sensors into the catless header and use a jetted O2 sensor bung to accomplish the differential between the two sensors.

I will note, we will have no issues retrofitting any designs we come up with in the future onto any of the downpipes we have currently sold into the market. We'll do our best to accommodate our customers needs based on their interest in upgrading down the line.

Jason

[empower-auto]

/waiting patiently to see the header in the store.