Post Turbo Exhaust
The main performance goal of a post turbo exhaust is to create the least amount of backpressure possible. There are a lot of factors that affect this.
Turbulence is one main factor. If the gasses are all stagnating and/or running into protrusions or running into each other it creates more backpressure than a well designed system. The more laminar (smooth and straight) the gas flow, the more the system can flow for a given pipe diameter. Steep angles and abrupt pipe diameter chances should be avoided.
The methods of collecting the outlet gasses and the wastegate gasses add another part of the equation to change. It would be optimal not to join the outlet from the turbo and the wastegate together, but the real world messes with our fun. Just dumping the wastegate to atmosphere is great for a racecar, but not a street car. So a street exhaust should combine them to get all of the gasses through the same cat and muffler system.
Some of the turbo outlet designs include: flanges with a simple pipe, bell mouths, divorced wastegate, and split bell mouths You also have castings and formed piping to choose from. Which one works best is also determined by quite a few different factors and how well they are designed and manufactured.
Flange w/Simple Pipe - The only advantages to this design are cost and simplicity. The pipe does not have to be formed and the flange is simple therefore reducing cost. The labor to weld the pipe to the flange is easy and therefore less costly as well. That is the main factor that make it desirable to the factory and why it is used on the stock exhaust. The wastegate gasses joining the turbo gasses right at the turbo outlet does create turbulence in the worst spot post turbo and reduces flow, thus not making it as desirable for performance as other designs.
BellMouth - This method is much closer to optimal for joining the gasses from the outlets. There is more room for them to join and if the transition is done properly it can flow very well into the main piping. It packages very well and does not have a lot of complexity, making for less to break. We have gotten the best results from this type of downpipe so far. Boost response has been the best out of the outlet designs we have tuned on, it is easy to put a wideband oxygen sensor bung into. We have also had the fewest problems with this design.
Split Bell Mouth - This design separates the gasses in the beginning of the turbo outlet and joins them at the rear of the bell mouth section. It works well and has some of the advantages of the bell mouth and some of the advantages of the divorced wastegate designs. The main deterrent for this is the cost and complexity of adding the splitter. I am a fan of keeping things as simple as possible while still making the product work well.
Divorced Wastegate - Keeping the gasses from the turbo outlet and wastegate separate until farther back in the system is an attempt to combine the advantages of not collecting the gasses and the real world. Combining them far back is closer to optimal than collecting them closer to the outlets. It is also critical to power production and spool-up to join the pipes smoothly and avoid turbulence. The disadvantages are that you add a lot of cost and complexity. You have big temperature differences on each pipe and that makes for a system that can crack. Putting in flex or expansion joints helps, but adds even further complexity and yet another part to fail. With all of the exhaust systems we have tuned with on the dyno we have seen that it is generally harder to bring boost on as quickly with these types of systems as compared to the bell mouth type systems. Perhaps it helps the wastegate function too well. Also, we have had a few situations where the splitter caused problems allowing the wastegate to function properly by not allowing it to open to its full extent, or even open at all. That caused either boost spiking, or no control over boost what so ever. Since the wastegate could not function the turbo ran as if it did even not have one, and the poor turbo just ran whatever boost it could make uncontrolled. The fix was not hard, but the least amount of stuff to go wrong the better. I know that I would not be happy having to pay for someone to install the exhaust only to have another place diagnose the problem, remove the exhaust, repair the part, and re-install the exhaust.
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