It Sounds Faster, But Is It? Custom Exhaust & Headers - The 850 Project S2E04

It Sounds Faster, But Is It? Custom Exhaust & Headers - The 850 Project S2E04

Show Video

(car engine roaring) (hands clapping) - Yeah! - Oh my God. - Oh my God. - Holy. (upbeat music) What's going on, everyone? Jacob here from FCP Euro, and on this episode of the 850 Project, it's all about power. And the first piece of that puzzle is the exhaust.

(car revving) - It's gotta go. - I've got a special guest with me today, Josh from 8Eight Fab. And I think I remember seeing you commenting on season one. - [Josh] yes. - [Jacob] I saw that 8Eight Fab commented on the videos.

I was like, wow, so you've been watching the project. - Yeah, been watching the videos and following the progress with the car and... - It's really awesome that we got to fly you up here, and we got four days to build a full exhaust system, huh? - Yes sir. Yep, we're gonna do a high-rise header, and then from there, we'll do a two and a half inch cap back.

Hopefully make some more power. - Yeah, and sound a lot better. - Yes. - So what do we gotta do, rip the old exhaust off? - Yep, we'll start by taking off the old exhaust and start from the header and work our way back.

- All right, can't wait to hear it. (upbeat music) To say I was excited to rip the ugly old exhaust out of the 850 was an understatement. (upbeat music) Next up, Josh modified the rearward engine mount to allow more clearance for our primary tubes.

(upbeat music) - So you can see how much tighter it fits now compared to, you know, it was way out here, so. That should help with some runner clearance. - I would've looked at that and been like, "Well, that's in the way, nothing we can do about that." After removing excess material, boxing it in for strength, and giving it a quick coat of paint, it went back in the car with much more room to spare. You can see there's a lot more clearance now, particularly over here.

The next thing we're looking at is if we can add any more clearance above here, right where the heat shield is. (upbeat music) (tool whirring) After trimming up the lower heat shield, we gained all the clearance we could to start building our exhaust header. (upbeat music) Starting with a laser cut exhaust flange, Josh began welding a small section of the primary tubes to the header flange.

(upbeat music) With the plan to build high-rise primary tubes, it would be impossible to install this header into the car as one piece. By cutting the header flange into separate pieces, Josh would be able to build and install the header one runner at a time. Because the ports on the Volvo cylinder head are oval, we need to make a transition piece from oval to round in order to properly weld the rest of the primary tubes to the flange. (upbeat music) - All right, so we're getting ready to start the first 90 up on the cylinder heads.

So I've got 180 bends. Like, do we want 'em all to be the same or you know, have 'em a little bit different? - They can be a little bit different. - Obviously once they get underneath the car, the height going into the collector is gonna be different. - [Jacob] Right.

- I think maybe the two that go to the top of the collector, make those a little taller, and then that way that'll help keep 'em close to being equal as they can. And then I think having one and five going to the bottom, and then either two or four, one of those going to the bottom would be easier. All right, I'll go ahead and chop this one off and throw a tack on it and see where it sits.

- [Jacob] All right. This is the exciting part, guys. Finally seeing where this is going. Sculpture really, right? - Yeah. - Loud sculpture. - Loud sculpture. (upbeat music) (tool whirring) - [Jacob] Josh then tacked up some primary tubes to get an idea of how and where we wanted to go with the exhaust header.

(upbeat music) - [Josh] Too tall? - Nah, I think that's perfect. - [Josh] Yeah? - That's pretty tall, but- - [Josh] That's very tall. - [Jacob] It's, I think it's gonna be cool. - [Josh] All right, we'll roll with it. - [Jacob] All right, let's do it. (chuckles)

That is ridiculously tall. (Josh laughing) (upbeat music) - All right, so we're gonna go ahead and test, test fit cylinder two and three and see how she's looking. Two down, three to go. - [Jacob] Yeah. That looks freaking bad (beep).

- [Cameraman] Yeah. - [Jacob] So this one's straight. That one turned in. - [Josh] Turned in. - [Jacob] And that one turned in. - [Josh] Yep. So these three will be shorter.

- [Jacob] Slightly shorter? - Yeah. So instead of cutting an inch and a half, I'll probably cut it right on the bend. So they'll sit about an inch and a half lower.

- [Jacob] Okay. (upbeat music) Guys, I see, I see progress. - [Josh] Yes, so got all the high-rise runners done. And so now it's just down back to the collector and from there, two and a half. - You want me to take over from here? - Yeah, we'll definitely let you do some welds.

You know, that way you could say that he welded on his own exhaust. - All right, well let me do it on the exhaust, not the header. Ah, that's frustrating. But you know what's more frustrating? Parts that don't last. That's why at FCP Euro, we sell only the highest quality OE, OEM, genuine and aftermarket parts for your European car.

Now let's try this again. (upbeat music) After measuring, tacking and test fitting, Josh began fully welding the primary tubes, back purging each pipe to ensure we have the strongest welds possible. (upbeat music) You see Josh's weld art, lettering? - [Cameraman] That's smart. (upbeat music) - [Jacob] With the five to one collector mocked up in its position, we started laying the groundwork or pipework for the rest of the exhaust system, starting with the flex pipe and resonator. (upbeat music) - [Josh] I'll hold the pipe in there, you know, hold it flush here and then move this where it's flush there.

And that'll give us the angle. - [Jacob] Three- - [Josh] 38. - [Jacob] 38 point set hills.

- I'll cut at 40. - [Jacob] 40? - Yeah, I'll cut it at 40. - [Jacob] Yep. - So usually I will take that 40 degree angle and then just put this in my saw at 40 degrees angle, 'cause my saw won't, it'll go up to 45, but since I don't have that here, I have to kinda eyeball this and then freehand the line and then cut it on their little porter band. All right, let's see how that works.

(upbeat music) (tool whirring) - [Jacob] After watching Josh weld all day, he truly made it look easy to lay perfect dimes on every pipe he welded. Part of the reason why we're doing all this is is to install a wideband O2 sensor. So if you don't know, a wideband O2 sensor measures your air fuel ratio. Another thing too is we need this wideband O2 sensor to plug into our MegaSquirt, so our MegaSquirt can read the wideband O2 sensor so that we can properly tune the car. So for somebody at home who's, you know, welding in a bunk for their O2 sensor, what would be the ideal location typically? - Yeah, so within 12 inches after the collector and then, you know, you wanna keep these at 90.

Anything below and you run the risk of water collecting, moisture from the exhaust collecting and potentially, you know, messing the sensor up. - Looks like you got a good spot right here to weld it in and we got that knocked out, right? - [Josh] Yep. (upbeat music) (tool whirring) - [Josh] Just shut it down.

- [Jacob] Josh insisted that I weld at least something on my exhaust system. So of course we went with the most visible part, the tip. Let me tell you, it was not as easy as Josh made it look even with him handholding me throughout the entire process.

- [Cameraman] Well, how's it going? - It's going. - [Cameraman] You a master welder yet? - No. No, but Josh is a really good teacher. - [Cameraman] Yeah? - Yeah. It's like almost like muscle memory. - [Cameraman] Oh yeah.

- Like I feel like he, it's just like, you just get into a rhythm. Josh was saying that you, some welders will listen to certain types of music and they'll pick a certain type of music depending on the material that they're welding because the beat of that music goes with how you need to move on that material based on the beat. - [Cameraman] Wow, that makes sense. You go with the beat? - [Josh] Yep, we can't just, you know, every time that bass hits or- - [Cameraman] How's Jacob doing? - Good. I mean, obviously you're not gonna be a master welder in 20 minutes on your first beat. Keep going around the circle.

- [Jacob] I had a better understanding of how much time he must've put in to perfect his craft. (upbeat music) You can see my ugly welds from here. - Jacob. These look pretty good. Laying some beads down, damn.

I'm proud of little Jacob, dude. That's hot. - [Jacob] What? - You're welds, dude.

- You serious? - These aren't bad. - [Jacob] Really? - Yeah. - Really? - I mean, it could be way worse, dude, they're really, they're not bad at all.

(upbeat music) - [Jacob] Working with Josh from 8Eight Fab these past few days, it became clear to me that he was not just a welder or fabricator, he was a sculptor, an artist. To be able to turn an idea, a vision and piece it together into something real and something beautiful was honestly incredible. (upbeat music) So it's been, it's been a long, would you say an exhausting five days? - Yeah, definitely a long five days. - So you're leaving today, so- - Yep. - We're done though, pretty much, right? - Yeah, we're done, finished welding and then time to throw it on the car, hear how it sounds and... - [Jacob] I'm like nervous and excited at the same time.

I'm not nervous 'cause I think it's gonna sound bad, I'm just like, I have no idea what to expect. But you can see, what is this, 12 inch, 12 inches long? - [Josh] Yeah, 16. - [Jacob] 16. - [Josh] Versus 36. From flange to the beginning of the collector.

- I could fit the stock header just right there. Oh my gosh. To be honest with you, Josh, I could stare at this all day but- - Yeah, we could.

- Let's just throw it on the car and hear how it sounds. - Sure, sounds good to me. - [Jacob] With Josh's crazy high-rise long tube five to one race header complete, it was finally time to fully install it into the 850. (upbeat music) From the runners to the collector, to the spring clamps and V bands, we finally piece together Josh's one-off exhaust eagerly anticipating what it will sound like. (upbeat music) (Jacod exhales loudly) I don't even wanna do it. - Yeah.

I mean I wouldn't go that far. - All right, all right. Why is this, why is my heart pumping? - [Cameraman] Just do it. - All right, you ready? - [Josh] Rip the Bandaid off.

- Yes or no? - [Cameraman] Yes! (car engine roaring) - [Josh] It's actually quieter than it was before. (amused chuckling) (car engine roaring) It's quieter. - It sounds totally different. - I'm glad it's quieter, what, than what I expected.

- It's not like piercing your ears. - Yeah. (car revving) (amused chuckling) - Oh my God.

- [Josh] Oh man. - Wow. - [Josh] Yeah. - [Man] Oh my God. - [Cameraman] Wow. - Holy (beep). Wow. - [Cameraman] Heck yeah. - What is this gonna sound like under load? - [Cameraman] Yeah.

Let's go find out. (car revving) (car engine roaring) - Oh my gosh. Wow! (car engine roaring) Oh my God. Holy shit. (car engine roaring) (hands clapping) - Yes! - Oh my God! - Oh my God. - Holy (beep).

- God, that sounds amazing. - You fricking did it, dude. That was it. That's like- - Oh that sounds so good. - That is like- - Holy crap. - A percentage of the BTC.

(car engine roaring) Oh my God. It feels good. - How sturdy are your- (engine drowns out speaker) I wanted to hear the lower RPMs.

(car engine roaring) It's wild, dude. It's so deep down low. - Yeah. (car engine roaring) - Oh my gosh! (car engine roaring) (amused laughing) I, my face is killing me. It sounds unreal. It sounds better than my dreams.

- Yeah. - Like unbelievable. (car engine roaring) (amused laughing) - That sounds pretty good! - Josh, I can't thank you enough for doing this.

Like you are the man. - Thank you. - Tomorrow we're gonna be installing a MegaSquirt ECU, running at the dino, and you have to head out today, right? - Yeah, I gotta head back to North Carolina. - So I guess I'll FaceTime you at the dino. - [Josh] Please, please do. - Yeah, and then next time you're here, you'll have to rip it on the proving grounds at Lime Rock Park. - Yeah, sounds like a blast.

(playful beeping) - A very exciting day today. We finished up the exhaust and now we're moving straight onto the ECU. So this was the ECU that we've been using in the car. Do remember from season one? This is the Vast tuning ECU that Aaron built us and it really is great. It's amazing what he can do with the M4.4 but with a stock ECU.

However, for what we plan on doing with this car, we're gonna need something a little bit better. I am not qualified to be doing any of this, and so I brought my good friend, Pat, to help me out. We'll call him the MegaSquirt Guru for this episode. - So this is a MegaSquirt 3 Pro play and play module. Well, mostly plug and play module that'll go right into the stock EC location.

- So the cool thing about the MegaSquirt ECU is that it basically just plugs right into the factory location. This is our intake air temp sensor that also needs to be wired here. We'll probably throw that guy right over here in our intake pipe. And then finally we'll wire in a wideband O2 sensor so that we can tune it. So pretty simple, and see how it goes. (upbeat music) While Pat got to work on installing the intake air sensor, I began running the wires inside the car for our AFR gauge.

(upbeat music) Got it. All right, I'm happy with that. With the intake outta the way, Pat was able to clean up some of the wiring and relays that were no longer needed and began running the new wires that we needed for the MegaSquirt. - [Pat] So we have one, two, three, four, five ignition, VVT and then intake air time. (upbeat music) - [Jacob] Beautiful. - This is the connector for the wideband oxygen sensor.

(upbeat music) - [Jacob] With the new O2 sensor installed in our exhaust, we began routing the cables to the ECU in the engine bay and gauge in the car. - Cylinder one, two, four, five, three. 'Cause that's a firing order. So even though it's connector one, two, three, four, five, you have to wire for just the ignition.

Yep, so we have cylinder one here, that's gonna be blue. (upbeat music) All right, so we are on the last two wires, the power ends, the switch power and ground for the wideband oxygen sensor. So once I hook these two wires up, we will be able to start the car.

Is this a cruel joke? Is there no 10 millimeter? (laughs) - [Jacob] Okay, plug and play part. This is the actual plug and play part. Whoa, we got, wait, we got power. - [Pat] So you want, I just need you to adjust the key on. - Fuel pump.

Well, everything's wired up, plugged in. Pat's checking some things on the computer but we're about to fire this thing up. - I don't have the configuration to support the firm wear. If you wanna start, then start it. - [Cameraman] Do you just pull tater tots outta your pocket? - Yeah.

Starving, I didn't get to eat anything today. - Freaking starving, I didn't get to eat anything today. - All right, ready? - [Pat] Go ahead. (car engine roaring) - It runs. First crank started it right up, and so it is plug and play.

(car engine roaring) (amused laughing) - [Pat] That's, that's good. - The source! - That's good. - [Man] That shit's spicy. (car engine roaring) - It sounds good, Pat.

- Sounds really good. (car engine roaring) Keep going. (car engine roaring) - About half throttle. Feels, it feels better than the other ECU already. And there's no VVT. - Yeah.

- What the heck? - Oh, she's gotta be spicy. - Oh dude. 'Cause remember, remember how dog, how much of a dog it was with VVT unplugged? Had like nothing. - Nothing. - Until like- - And now it's just like- - It just goes. - It just goes.

- With how, what the heck? - Yeah. - Dude, oh my God. Oh my God, with VVT, it's going, it's gonna move. So far so good, right? - Yeah. - Mega, it's running on MegaSquirt, Pat.

Is that Jimmy? Hey. It's Jimmy. He's the owner of the shop. - Oh okay.

(car engine roaring) Fuck it, let her go ahead. Go ahead. - Full throttle. - Keep going, keep going. - What did that go to? - That was to 7,200. (amused laughing) - [Jacob] Pat and I got the car running pretty smoothly with some street tuning, but we could only test so much within the public speed limits.

So the next stop was to head to the dino to really open this thing up. So today's dino day and everything's good. We checked the oil, we checked our tire pressures.

Everything's in the leaks, everything's good. Pat and I were here pretty late the other night wiring in the VVT. So if you see here we have an additional cam sensor and an additional wire going to the MegaSquirt and we wired up the VVT, checked on the laptop and our VVT cam sensor signal was just completely all over the place. And we were here till like what, midnight? Like trying to figure it out.

Did we wire it wrong? Is there something, what's going on? It turned out that this engine has a very specific cam wheel for the cam sensor. This engine actually came out of a Denso car, not a Bosch car, which is probably why it has this funky sensor. So we have no settings. The MegaSquirt has no way of knowing how this works. So thankfully Will, our good friend, Will, had a car he was parting out and had the correct cam wheel that we've popped in here.

Everything works, everything looks good, right. So let's head to the dino and see what it does. (playful beeping) (upbeat music) First time, was shocked at how much power the original engine made. (car engine roaring) Should we just keep this engine? Second time, pretty disappointed at how much power the new engine made. (car engine roaring) This time I'm hoping to redeem ourselves a little bit.

- The wideband is reading full lean. - Oh really? - Yeah. The O2 sensor, it keeps cutting in and out. - [Jacob] Oh really? Check, should we check? - [Pat] I'm gonna check underneath. - [Jacob] Okay. Is that sensor bad? - I dunno, I dunno if it's bad.

- I mean, it's just a LSU 4.9. After checking the wiring for the O2 sensor, we removed it from the exhaust to realize the censor had failed. - [Cameraman] Is that the culprit, Pat? - That's the culprit. It looks real rich. - [Jacob] Thankfully Jimmy had our backs with a new sensor.

We think we have a faulty O2 sensor. - In your car? - [Jacob] Y-band, yeah. LSU 4.9 AM. - [Jimmy] Oh you need one for your car? - Yeah, I think- - I have one. - Yeah? - [Jimmy] Yeah, let me get for you. - Thank you. - 30-2004.

- That's the, just the sensor, yeah? You don't have a wrench for that, are you? - I'll get you a wrench. - [Jacob] Thank you. - Perfect, I'll be right over there. - [Cameraman] Thank you. - You're not filming me are you? - [Cameraman] No. - Okay, that's it.

- [Cameraman] Pat's not here. - Where's Pat, he's in the bathroom? So Jimmy from the shop pulled through. We think we have a bad sensor. Of course, he's got stockpiles of these. So got this and a wrench and hopefully that fixes it.

- [Cameraman] Yeah. - There we go. - [Jacob] We in business, Pat? - We're in business. (car engine roaring) So I added two degrees of timing. - [Jacob] Yeah. - [Pat] And it liked it. - [Jacob] It liked it? - [Pat] A lot, oh yeah.

Oh yeah. - [Jacob] Okay. - [Pat] It's got knock control. I'm watching the, I'm watching the knock. I'm watching the knock in the AFR.

- Yeah, all right, if it likes timing, that's cool. (car engine roaring) - [Pat] I, it went from like 18 to 22 degrees. - Liked it? - Oh yeah! - Dude, all right, we've officially made more power. - Yeah? - Yeah.

- (beep) yeah. - Last time we were here, we made 154.9. (car engine roaring) Eventually we got to the point of diminishing returns. However, we knew there was a bit more left in the car with some problem solving of the VVT control. - It's safe, you know what I mean? I have closed loop fueling in, that's turned on.

Yeah, we're definitely gonna have to play with the VVTs some more. - Yeah. - Like at a later time. Something's, something that we can control with this software is a little, I think it's a little weird. Everything's like within, you know, within reason.

It's got a good air fuel ratio, it's got a pretty good ignition timing table right now. We'll have to mess around with the VVT a little bit more but it definitely like 10 degrees of advance across the board, you know, which is a little odd. Even, it picked up at the top end even with advance. So we'll have to play around with that a little more.

But we did make more power. We made 161.9 horsepower and 161.1 foot pounds of torque. - [Jacob] So that's- - So that's, that is- - That is a pretty significant difference. - Absolutely. - From where we were before.

- Oh yeah. - I think- - I think even drivability itself is just, it's a lot better. - [Jacob] Yeah. - We have a good solid base to go off of. - We're not done yet. Tune in for the next episode. We're still gonna make some more power with this thing with ITBs.

Very exciting. It's gonna be a lot of work, but it's gonna be worth it. Even for the sound alone. Try not to rail me in the comments too hard this time, guys. Like, comment, subscribe.

See ya.

2023-05-14 05:38

Show Video

Other news