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Exhaust System Flow Capacity 1

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140Airpower

Automotive
Mar 25, 2012
389
Just a question. Is there a rule of thumb for sizing exhaust systems for passenger cars? I assume the main concern is the avoidance of condensation by keeping velocities up. Second would be low back pressure.
 
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It is rumoured that some of the tier 1 guys are suggesting a DPF operates as a noise reduction device, good enough to eliminate an upstream muffler.

- Steve
 
"250 mbar at peak power" ~ 3.6 psi

I seem to recall David Vizard was suggesting if the back pressure measured at a pipe wall bung was 2.5 psi or less, leave it alone.

Dan T
 
TMoose I know Vizard, he's concerned mainly with tuned aftermarket cars.

My figures are vehicles that meet emissions, complete with catalytic converters and meeting drive by noise regulations




Sideways To Victory!
 
Tmoose, Vizard also said exhaust back pressure is about 1/25th as important as intake pressure drop. That also is in rough consistency with these figures.
 
Intake pressure drop starves power.
Exhaust back pressure melts pistons.


- Steve
 
Hi Marquis,

I guess I should have said I was offering David Vizard's number as a number I recalled, maybe incorrectly, just as another, interesting (to me, anyway) data point.
(Does he still sport the hairdo he wore in "How to build horsepower". For a while I thought he and Clive Tricky were the same person)

I'm hoping to persuade/convince an impatient young engineer friend to weld a few bungs onto his old Corvette's exhaust before re-sizing the exhaust system for his passenger car.
The high performance values you provided will be quite useful.

thanks

Dan T
 
Tmoose I spoke to him a few times on the phone.
I didn't ask about his hairstyle ;-)

I think he lives in NC.

I think for your own project his figures look good and low, the lower you can go the better.
Back pressure isn't really good for anything- although some folks get confused and talk about BP being better for low speed tuning- what they probably mean is that smaller diameter pipes benefit low speed tuning which just happens to have higher back pressure unfortunately.


Sideways To Victory!
 
Recalling from my heavy duty engine days,... 4"Hg I think was the maximum allowed, typically for an automotive heavy duty application (e.g. full size bus, Class 7 & 8 truck). So, 2psig, or 14 kPa.
Stationary engines typically have even lower backpressure requirements. One application comes to mind, IIRC, in the vicinity of 10" H2O. This is due to the free-floating turbocharger - wastegates are not accepted in the mainstream powergen market.

"Schiefgehen will, was schiefgehen kann" - das Murphygesetz
 
hemi, A wastegate is needed for installations where boost is required at the bottom of an engine's wide operational range. An engine optimized to run in a narrow range can have a turbo sized correctly for that operating range. It can be much more efficient. 10"H2O exhaust back pressure is impressive. What ratio of intake/exhaust pressures are common?
 
The ratio I don't recall off the top of my head, but it is in favour of intake for stationary engines. For automotive engines, it is in favour of the intake in a range surrounding peak torque, before too much energy is being "wasted" across the wastegate. I even see this on my own daily driver, during the latter part of spoolup, before the wastegate gets involved.

"Schiefgehen will, was schiefgehen kann" - das Murphygesetz
 
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