crispone wrote:So how do I revive this dialogue? Do we need a new thread?
Gen 2 exhaust.... Dual over Single
- I don't believe you get a benefit that exceeds the penalty of weight gain with a dual exhaust over a single. A single cylinder of metal as a measure of volume of flow per mass of cylinder wall contains less weight, and is capable of moving the flow of both banks of 3 cylinders with a fraction in dimensional increase as a diameter relative to the amount of flow you get from two smaller diameters of tube equating to greater mass. Small diameter changes in a cylinder make large changes in volume of flow. A dual exhaust "re-creates" another cylinder that contains steel tube mass that is using the least efficient portion of the diameter in terms of volume of flow. (Just add a little more pipe diameter... say, about what matches the TRD inlet? You should flow plenty to see good gains.)
- I think the TRD will be a pretty good flowing exhaust. Comments in the thread really criticize it, but I studied it before installation, and I'm not sure why the down-talk. As with the previouse point on dual system mass/flow benefit, unless you are more interested in the intangible facet of STYLE as your focus for consideration, I think it is adequate. I've gotten great flow from 4-1 literbike systems that were course but well balanced, and I gained nicely with a $100 (I tipped the guy $50 up front) run of 3" that had very minimal bends straight out a chrome tip (yup, nothin' but one volume of pipe from the downpipe flex back) on a Supra after the mandrel bent high-dollar HKS (also a very nice system) had to be swapped when It wore out. Fancy doesn't necessarily make it perform better... you gotta' know your driving factors. Performance or Style... (of course, BOTH is a nice ticket!)
anyway.... need to stir up some chatter on the GEN 2 EXHAUST project...
- crisp
I think some where along the way, the message that this was more
cosmetic than functional got lost. (That's OK, it's a long winded thread) I don't remember downtalking the TRD as I ran it for years on my Gen2. I loved the sound. I was after something more ...
The rear of the car just "needed" the dual exhaust to balance out the appearance. (Much like the SC430 has) No gain was expected.
I did find the exhaust pinch points though. They were up front in the Y-joint and in the submuffler. My intention there was to give the Solara a little more upper end power at the loss of bottom end.
- Changing the front pipe from the 3.3L Solara Front pipe assembly to the larger diameter 3.5L Avalon front pipe was possible with small modification. (The two inlet flanges needed to be cut off and rewelded on a different rotation. The outlet flange was fine.) I haven't checked the 2007 3.5L Camry pipe as it was not available when I started this thread. It may be a direct swap if someone can get one and compare.
As for the submuffler (Toyota's term for resonator); just straight pipe it.
At the end of the day, all three mods will do the following, so pick and choose what you want:
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Change to Avalon front pipe: Increase upper end power slightly. No one has tested this yet. The service part from Toyota is ungodly expensive because there is a converter in it. (I think the company paid around $900 for it) Finding one from a newly wrecked Avalon is a better option.
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Straight Pipe the Submuffler: No real performance gain but you are getting rid of some lower frequency tuning. 150Hz - 300Hz Toyota will find a frequency that is undesireable (usually at idle) and tune the submuffler to cancel or absorb this problem. We tend to like this sound, so opening it up makes the Solara sound a little deeper.
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The Dual Exhaust: Again, this is for appearance and some acoustics. No performance gain is expected at all. (Expecially due to the increase in vehicle weight.) However, the system should sound a little deeper and the potential appearance would be awesome looking. I deemed the project to be quite a bit of effort. I had many of the pieces ready and then moved on from the Solara. I hope someday to work on a system with someone local to me in Michigan. Perhaps we'll see it tried early next year.