The amazing Boy Racer Poll!

[scumdog]

Reducing back-pressure, gasses flow more freely, more revs and less torque.

See any rally cars with big exhausts lately?

The amount of BR's cruizing around with the wheels totally out of alignment and the steel belts showing through the tyres...

Yep, see it heaps, they lower the rear of a car with I.R.S. and exceed the amount of camber adjustment in the suspension so just drive around with that sad-ass 'knocked-knee' look, unfortunately apart from looking stupid it also allows the inside edge of the tyre to take most of the load and wear faster, outside edge (the part you can see) looks o.k. but inside can be 'down to the canvas' (old school terminology) and bloody dangerous.

[Fryin Finn]

OOh err I have to admit I have a sorta boy racers car - I bought it that way. A Honda prelude Vtec with lowered suspension and fat 17" 3 spoke wheels. Momo steering wheel and pedals and a fancy anti sway bar that was given to me. But it has a stock exhaust and the stereo is crap. I never go cruising in it and if one of those 'boy racers' fancies a race I will kick there arse
but If I lose I'll get my bike out.

[JohnBoy]

i don't mind em. cause when i moved to hamilton the boy racers up here don't seem to understand the concept of power to weight!!
i take it upon myself to educate the waikato public

[vifferman]

I have some respect for the cars that are modded to actually improve them, but most of the Boy Racer mods are just for Wank Factor™, to impress other guys (does it??) and attract chicks. Everyone knows that there's a whole breed of people who are irresistably attracted to the "ooonse ooonse boom-da-boom" noises and then dazzled by the bling when they get close enough. Surely you must have seen these guys cruising up and down around areas populated by chicks, then stopping once the car has been totally covered by nubile young girlies, then scraping off the ones they don't want and sticking the rest in the back seat? (Heh.. sticking... unintentional pun. )
The "PSSSHHT" is the blow-off valve clearing unwanted chickies, tweenies and pimple-faced confused male teens off the sides of the car.

Back to Reality? The big-bore exhausts don't work on anything other than large-capacity engines, and in most cases (especially turbos) actually decrease the performance. Some back pressure is needed for low to mid-range performance and proper operation of the turbos. Real performance cars have extractors, carefully tuned for the engine, not random bits of stainless steel designed to convert power into noise. Real performance cars have suspension systems designed to improve handling, not make them ride like a shopping cart and make them handle like a tractor.

We used to have a houseful of young asian students a few doors down from us, all with big-bore equiped Pieces'o'Crap™ (all gutless automatics too, of course. All Drone and No Go). Sadly, they finished their studies and moved on before I got around to paying them a 2 AM visit to improve their big bores with a can of expanding gap filler...

[Drunken Monkey]

Back to Reality? The big-bore exhausts don't work on anything other than large-capacity engines, and in most cases (especially turbos) actually decrease the performance. Some back pressure is needed for low to mid-range performance and proper operation of the turbos.

Can you back up that statement with some engineering facts & figures? All the race car builders and engine tuners I know (Joe Kyle, Andy Culpin, amongst others) have said differently. They aren't hobbyists, they're professionals.

[scumdog]

Can you back up that statement with some engineering facts & figures? All the race car builders and engine tuners I know (Joe Kyle, Andy Culpin, amongst others) have said differently. They aren't hobbyists, they're professionals.

Most times there will be a BIT of an improvement but you would need a dyno to notice it.
Some engine management systems can't handle the drop in back pressure and the engine will run lean and LOSE power.

Putting a big-yawn exhaust onto stock exhaust maniflds is a bit of a waste as the benefits of the supposedly free-flowing big pipe if cancelled out by the utra restrictive manifold.
It's right up there with throwing away the stock air-filter and fitting a 'performance' pod-type filter, IF there is any improvement I doubt any human could tell! the only benefit would be to the filter manufacturers pocket.!!

[Drunken Monkey]

Putting a big-yawn exhaust onto stock exhaust maniflds is a bit of a waste as the benefits of the supposedly free-flowing big pipe if cancelled out by the utra restrictive manifold.

I wouldn't disagree with that qualifier, however his original statement was made as a blanket statement.

Most modern (ie post 1990) street performance cars engine managements should be (ie, are) able to take a small advantage from a free-breathing exhaust or pod filter. There is quite a lot of room for the ignition advance to work with, especially when some of these cars have been designed to be able to be run on Japanese 100 octane pump gas. You don't need to go into additional complications of catalytic converters and extractors for my benefit, my point was a simpler one than that!

on your other point...

Dynos (empircal data) may be the only way to prove that you have small gains, but when people are 'in tune' with their vehicles, the seat-o-pants-ometer is oft able to pickup even the smallest/slightest changes.

I'm sure even you can tell when your bike's tyre pressures are not quite right (only a couple of psi off 'normal'), or if the carbs are running lean or rich - think about how small those jets are, or a drop in spark strength on one of your cylinders.

[Devil]

Most times there will be a BIT of an improvement but you would need a dyno to notice it.
Some engine management systems can't handle the drop in back pressure and the engine will run lean and LOSE power.

Putting a big-yawn exhaust onto stock exhaust maniflds is a bit of a waste as the benefits of the supposedly free-flowing big pipe if cancelled out by the utra restrictive manifold.
It's right up there with throwing away the stock air-filter and fitting a 'performance' pod-type filter, IF there is any improvement I doubt any human could tell! the only benefit would be to the filter manufacturers pocket.!!

Yeah, as far as turbo cars go the exhaust mods only become of benefit when you're getting into non standard turbos and high boost.

Most of the time, these stupid fart-pipes are just the tip. Although there are more and more off the shelf muffler/tip combos, it makes shit all difference untill you start dealing with the manifold. Some models are exceptions as they are fairly restricted from the factory to deal with emission laws, rah de rah.

Loud dump valves piss me off. I have a twin turbo car but my ones (factory) are recirculating so you can only just hear a small 'fssh' when a gear change occurs.

The point of them isnt anti-lag, its to evacuate pressure build up when the throttle has been closed so that build up of air isnt forced into the engine.
Anti-lag is a different kettle of fish ( or is that FSSSHH!)

[Motoracer]

Also note that standard exhaust system on high performance Japanese cars make their bhp restricted to about 270 (I think). When my mate got his evo 7, all he had to do was put a free flow exhaust system and an airfilter to make his car put out 350hp on the dyno!!

[Devil]

Also note that standard exhaust system on high performance Japanese cars make their bhp restricted to about 270 (I think). When my mate got his evo 7, all he had to do was put a free flow exhaust system and an airfilter to make his car put out 350hp on the dyno!!

280BHP is the jap "gentlemens agreement".
I am having trouble believing that it was *just* the exhaust and filter that did that. He must have upped the boost as well.
eg. Mitsi factory upgraded Evo's (FQ300, FQ330, with 300 and 330HP respectively) required exhaust, chip and boost mods to get that power.

In saying that, 350hp is entirely believeable when you add upping the boost into the equation.

[Riff Raff]

Being in the profession of carting what's left of these boy racers to hospital when they've wasted themselves, their passengers or innocent bystanders, I have to say that every time one screams past me, it gives me the shits bigtime. Oh, and most of them seem to be arrogent little pusheads.

[Dr Bob]

I get pissed off with them dropping rubber on our street, noisy bstds. We are also 25 meters from a primary school on one side and 50 meters from a secondary school on the other, so there are a lot of kids walking around and some of the boy/girl racers drive inappropriately for the conditions.

We applied to have speed control devices fitted in our street but we were knocked back because the number of fatal or serious accidents are just below the threshold.

Whenever I get the chance I do record number plates, although it's such a hassle having to go into a police station to fill out a complaint form this kind of slows down my momentum. I kinda feel that throwing rocks would be a more direct and satisfying approach.

[Motoracer]

280BHP is the jap "gentlemens agreement".
I am having trouble believing that it was *just* the exhaust and filter that did that. He must have upped the boost as well.
eg. Mitsi factory upgraded Evo's (FQ300, FQ330, with 300 and 330HP respectively) required exhaust, chip and boost mods to get that power.

In saying that, 350hp is entirely believeable when you add upping the boost into the equation.

I think he could have had a boost controler maybe...

[rodgerd]

Being in the profession of carting what's left of these boy racers to hospital when they've wasted themselves, their passengers or innocent bystanders, I have to say that every time one screams past me, it gives me the shits bigtime. Oh, and most of them seem to be arrogent little pusheads.

I'm sure there are more than a few who think the same way about riders. It's not like we don't have our share of people who think it's unreasonable they lost their license for 200 in a 100 zone here, for example...

[Devil]

I think he could have had a boost controler maybe...

Yeah sounds most likely.
I took an Evo 7 for a drive and was keen on buying one (but didnt, hmm methinks the gf/parents wouldnt have been too keen on me spending that much on a car :P). I enjoyed it very much, loved the sharp handling. Straight line power was so-so, id prefer to have more, but tis a very nice car.