[Chez]

Anyone have this tune on 2017? I'm curious how they get around the TCM that everyone else claims needs to be unlocked.

[AJL13]

Originally Posted by Chez

Anyone have this tune on 2017? I'm curious how they get around the TCM that everyone else claims needs to be unlocked.

Guilty as charged. Not sure how the bypass works, but it does. I've had it on my 2017 for 3 months now, and it's great. Hard to notice a difference in power, but the A8 programming is definitely better.

[Chez]

Originally Posted by AJL13

Guilty as charged. Not sure how the bypass works, but it does. I've had it on my 2017 for 3 months now, and it's great. Hard to notice a difference in power, but the A8 programming is definitely better.

Awesome! Might have to order it now.

[AJL13]

Originally Posted by Chez

Awesome! Might have to order it now.

I ordered it during their black friday promotion last year for $349...hard to beat, considering aftermarket axle-back exhausts for our cars go for twice that, and don't add anything to the car from a performance/driveability standpoint.

[Camarolover85]

Originally Posted by AJL13

I ordered it during their black friday promotion last year for $349...hard to beat, considering aftermarket axle-back exhausts for our cars go for twice that, and don't add anything to the car from a performance/driveability standpoint.

Not true! My axle back adds at least 15HP with the stickers affixed.

[PolynesianPowerhouse]

Originally Posted by AJL13

I ordered it during their black friday promotion last year for $349...hard to beat, considering aftermarket axle-back exhausts for our cars go for twice that, and don't add anything to the car from a performance/drivability standpoint.

my times at the track improved 3-5 tenths consistently .... but I guess most people here don't really care about actual performance...just cars and coffee and sound clips on youtube (Realistically...its REALLY RARE to see many outside of a SELECT few actually take their car to any place that tests performance gains or losses in real world situations in the V6 forum. theres a few street racers, but they don't even use any datalogging devices and theres no time slips in street racing)

2 simple things to note...

- if you don't have the dual mode exhaust, the stock exhaust IS restrictive being chambered vs straight through which most aftermarket axlebacks are... no brainer.

- the weight between a simple axleback setup, is far lighter than the stock suitcase of a muffler.

with that being said, since when does better flow and lighter weight not equate to a performance gain?

[AJL13]

Originally Posted by PolynesianPowerhouse

my times at the track improved 3-5 tenths consistently .... but I guess most people here don't really care about actual performance...just cars and coffee and sound clips on youtube (Realistically...its REALLY RARE to see many outside of a SELECT few actually take their car to any place that tests performance gains or losses in real world situations in the V6 forum. theres a few street racers, but they don't even use any datalogging devices and theres no time slips in street racing)

2 simple things to note...

- if you don't have the dual mode exhaust, the stock exhaust IS restrictive being chambered vs straight through which most aftermarket axlebacks are... no brainer.

- the weight between a simple axleback setup, is far lighter than the stock suitcase of a muffler.

with that being said, since when does better flow and lighter weight not equate to a performance gain?

I am going to have to disagree with you here.

The weight savings is negligible; I've taken stock units off my previous car (not a Camaro, granted) before and replaced them with aftermarket. My arm scale told me there was maybe a 10-15 lb difference between the stock unit and the aftermarket one. That's like taking the spare out of your car and expecting any measurable gain in performance.

In terms of "flow", again, any unit that is just essentially replacing the mufflers and a small section of pipe is going to result in a negligible gain, if any, ESPECIALLY for an N/A motor. As long as your headers/downpipe/cats are remaining unmodified in an N/A car, you are essentially only gaining a different/better sound and look by swapping out the stock axle-back unit for an aftermarket one. The further away from the motor you get, the less of a difference it makes--this is a pretty tried-and-true rule of thumb.

[CTridico]

Originally Posted by Camarolover85

Not true! My axle back adds at least 15HP with the stickers affixed.

I gained 50HP with the shocker sticker you should try one.

[PolynesianPowerhouse]

Originally Posted by AJL13

I am going to have to disagree with you here.

The weight savings is negligible; I've taken stock units off my previous car (not a Camaro, granted) before and replaced them with aftermarket. My arm scale told me there was maybe a 10-15 lb difference between the stock unit and the aftermarket one. That's like taking the spare out of your car and expecting any measurable gain in performance.

In terms of "flow", again, any unit that is just essentially replacing the mufflers and a small section of pipe is going to result in a negligible gain, if any, ESPECIALLY for an N/A motor. As long as your headers/downpipe/cats are remaining unmodified in an N/A car, you are essentially only gaining a different/better sound and look by swapping out the stock axle-back unit for an aftermarket one. The further away from the motor you get, the less of a difference it makes--this is a pretty tried-and-true rule of thumb.

you can disagree all you want, by all means. disagree your lil heart out . However, I'm simply going by timeslips, actually weighing things, and personal expereince... not arm weights or any guesses.

46lbs was the removed weight of the stock muffler.

41lbs was the entire box and packing, hat, and swag of the borla box. 28lbs was what the two mufflers weighed. so i'll agree its close to what you said...18lbs. but every bit counts.


that was the only change in back to back track days...same DA, temps, etc... removed the jack and stands from the trunk the second day...you only gain 1 tenth from every 100lbs of weight. a jack, stands, and the ratchet kit doesn't weight that much.

going from 14.1's to 13.5's shows differently than anyone's assumptions.

14 runs on one day, 18 on the other.

also MPH was consistently higher... up from 102's and 103's to 104's through 106's in trap speed.


and no... if you've done this many times before, anyone can tell you a stock muffler is made for one thing.... reducing sound. its mass made so that everyone can enjoy the car, young and old....hence the reason why theres an NPP option. for better performance and sound.

however with the stock mufflers. this is an area for a decent gain due to the design of most. the exhaust goes through 3 separate chambers and perforated hole sections (did similar on the 5th gens as well). comparing that to a simple straight through pipe...yes there's going to be a restriction.

this is the NPP setup.

when the outlet is open via the valve, exhaust basically travels through the inlet pipe and out the "side" exit of the muffler, past the valve and out the tip. straight through...which is why the NPP is performance oriented.

however when closed, or if you have the regular muffler (already cut one open to verify) the exhaust flows through the inlet, into the first chamber, then at the REAR of the muffler (if on the car) that's a pipe that's open that flows to the center and then back out to the rear corner exit. so its flowing through 3 chambers.

the most basic rules of exhaust flow apply to intake flow as well. when the velocity slows down....so does the efficiency and thus the power. anytime flow stagnates, its bad for performance.

basics on exhaust:

Here is a typical stock muffler cut open. See how the baffles reverse the flow several times though chambers and force the flow to travel through wadding? Good to cut noise, bad for backpressure and ultimately, performance.

To produce the most amount of power, an exhaust should have the least amount of restriction to the exhaust flow. Restriction hampers the burnt exhaust gasses from exiting your engine, causing some charge dilution with the incoming fresh fuel air mixture. If all the exhaust gas cannot escape from you cylinders, it dilutes the flammable power producing intake mixture that is trying to come in. The diluted mixture does not burn as well as a pure mixture. This causes a loss of power. You don’t feel so energetic at a packed club with lots of cigarette smoke, sweaty bodies and hot stuffy air right? Neither does your motor. With greater restriction, backpressure is generated making the engine work harder to pump the exhaust out of the engine's cylinders. The harder it is to get the exhaust out; the power wasted to pump the stale exhaust gas out of a restrictive exhaust system could be used to turn the wheels instead. Turbocharged, suspercharged, Nitrous Equipped and engines with really big cams are all especially sensitive to backpressure.

An old hotrodders tall tale is that engines need some backpressure to work properly and make torque. Well that is not true. What engines need is the lowest low backpressure possible but with a high exhaust stream velocity. A fast moving but free flowing gas column in the exhaust helps create a rarefaction or a negative pressure wave behind the exhaust valve right as it opens. This vacuum helps scavenge the cylinder of exhaust gas faster and more thoroughly with less pumping loss-inducing work. A too big in diameter exhaust pipe has low backpressure but lower velocity. The low velocity reduces the effectiveness of this scavenging effect, which has the greatest impact on low-end torque. So remember fast = low backpressure + high velocity. Slow=low backpressure=too big of an exhaust pipe=low velocity. Low backpressure also helps a turbocharger work more effectively.

Low backpressure and high exhaust stream velocity can be achieved by running straight through free flowing mufflers and relatively small pipe diameters. The only exceptions to this are super or turbocharged motors, motors optimized for large amounts of nitrous oxide and highly modified naturally aspirated motors with huge cams. These types of engines vastly increase the exhaust gas volume and simply need larger pipes to get rid of it all or in the case of the high strung NA motor, are very sensitive to small amounts of backpressure.

Some stock mufflers and exhaust systems have up to 20 psi of choking, power robbing backpressure. In direct contrast, a well-designed high performance street exhaust system typically has about 2-6 psi of backpressure. For interesting comparison sake, an un-muffled straight pipe on a real racecar usually has 0-3 psi of backpressure.

http://www.motoiq.com/MagazineArticl...st-System.aspx





Now Granted I didn't do any tests on how much backpressure the stock made vs the borla S types.... I can vouch my gas mileage has gone up decently well on longer trips, and my times at the track have gone down nearly a second with just intake, ported TB and exhaust. I started out roughly with a 14.1 - 14.3 second car.... I still weight around 362-375 depending on if I'm doing a lot of shows or in the winter time. The next time I went, I was running 13.5 to 13.8's all day long.

and the last time out (with a change of intake), I ran my best of 13.462 backed by a 13.488 and actually had wheel spin, so I should be able to improve on that with some traction mods this year.


like said... I'm not guessing on these things... I've actually added them and tested the differences. I personally hate "bench racing" done on forums. I'd rather just do it and see what it does and KNOW, rather than say something that's just been repeated and guess. but not many v6, LT, etc people actually mod and then test and see what things do or don't do (its also the reason why mods are slow to come from manufacturers).... just the normal myths that have been passed down over the decades...

no different than people saying "my rotors warped" or "basic boltons don't change anything"... just typical automotive myths that have been proven wrong. but people still cling to em...

now I'll agree its not gonna turn a 14 second car into a 11 second all day car. its not gonna give you 50+whp. REALISTICALLY SPEAKING every mod you add, if done right, should increase efficiency. if you increase efficiency, that's less power lost to pumping losses, and more power to the wheels.

However, from my experiences, and actually testing out things at a track when you can get solid real world data..., time slips and some data logs to back it up... yea, the exhaust is a decent improvement. the Mile Per Hour was the first thing I noticed that day after the change to the axlebacks. dropping tire pressure from 33 to 27.5 helped with traction.

[Camarolover85]

Originally Posted by CTridico

I gained 50HP with the shocker sticker you should try one.

You mean like the 2 in 1 shocker??

[AJL13]

Originally Posted by PolynesianPowerhouse

you can disagree all you want. I'm simply going by timeslips...



.same DA, temps, etc... removed the jack and stands from the trunk the second day...you only gain 1 tenth from every 100lbs of weight. a jack, stands, and the ratchet kit doesn't weight that much.

going from 14.1's to 13.5's shows differently than anyone's assumptions.

14 runs on one day, 18 on the other.

also MPH was consistently higher... up from 102's and 103's to 104's through 106's in trap speed.


and no... if you've done this many times before, anyone can tell you a stock muffler is made for one thing.... reducing sound. its mass made so that everyone can enjoy the car, young and old....hence the reason why theres an NPP option. for better performance and sound.

however with the stock mufflers. the exhaust goes through 3 separate chambers and perforated hole sections. comparing that to a simple straight through pipe...yes there's going to be a restriction.

this is the NPP setup.

when the outlet is open via the valve, exhaust basically travels through the inlet pipe and out the "side" exit of the muffler, past the valve and out the tip. straight through...which is why the NPP is performance oriented.

however when closed, or if you have the regular muffler (already cut one open to verify) the exhaust flows through the inlet, into the first chamber, then at the REAR of the muffler (if on the car) that's a pipe that's open that flows to the center and then back out to the rear corner exit. so its flowing through 3 chambers.

the most basic rules of exhaust flow apply to intake flow as well. when the velocity slows down....so does the efficiency and thus the power. anytime flow stagnates, its bad for performance.

basics on exhaust:





http://www.motoiq.com/MagazineArticl...st-System.aspx





Now Granted I didn't do any tests on how much backpressure the stock made vs the borla S types.... I can vouch my gas mileage has gone up decently well on longer trips, and my times at the track have gone down nearly a second with just intake, ported TB and exhaust. I started out roughly with a 14.1 - 14.3 second car.... I still weight around 362-375 depending on if I'm doing a lot of shows or in the winter time. The next time I went, I was running 13.5 to 13.8's all day long.

and the last time out (with a change of intake), I ran my best of 13.462 backed by a 13.488 and actually had wheel spin, so I should be able to improve on that with some traction mods this year.


like said... I'm not guessing on these things... I've actually added them and tested the differences. I personally hate "bench racing" done on forums. I'd rather just do it and see what it does and KNOW, rather than say something that's just been repeated and guess. but not many v6, LT, etc people actually mod and then test and see what things do or don't do (its also the reason why mods are slow to come from manufacturers).... just the normal myths that have been passed down over the decades...

no different than people saying "my rotors warped" or "basic boltons don't change anything"... just typical automotive myths that have been proven wrong. but people still cling to em...

now I'll agree its not gonna turn a 14 second car into a 11 second all day car. its not gonna give you 50+whp. REALISTICALLY SPEAKING every mod you add, if done right, should increase efficiency. if you increase efficiency, that's less power lost to pumping losses, and more power to the wheels.

However, from my experiences, and actually testing out things at a track when you can get solid real world data..., time slips and some data logs to back it up... yea, the exhaust is a decent improvement. the Mile Per Hour was the first thing I noticed that day after the change to the axlebacks. dropping tire pressure from 33 to 27.5 helped with traction.

Honestly, I would have to see a dyno sheet to be 100% convinced. Not that I don't believe your testimony and experience, nor am I saying that your write up on airflow doesn't make sense.

But as someone who has taken advanced college-level statistical research methods courses (I know I'm appealing to authority a little bit here, but hang with me here), the number one think you are taught is that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Meaning your difference in 1/4 passes are most likely due to several different variables being at play (which you have already partially addressed, granted). Like I said, I'm not saying an axle back exhaust makes no difference; I'm saying it's a negligible difference, especially when you factor in the cost.

[KirkH]

Originally Posted by Camarolover85

You mean like the 2 in 1 shocker??

[PolynesianPowerhouse]

Originally Posted by AJL13

Honestly, I would have to see a dyno sheet to be 100% convinced. Not that I don't believe your testimony and experience, nor am I saying that your write up on airflow doesn't make sense.

But as someone who has taken advanced college-level statistical research methods courses (I know I'm appealing to authority a little bit here, but hang with me here), the number one think you are taught is that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Meaning your difference in 1/4 passes are most likely due to several different variables being at play (which you have already partially addressed, granted). Like I said, I'm not saying an axle back exhaust makes no difference; I'm saying it's a negligible difference, especially when you factor in the cost.

I guess "negligible: would be like determining worth. as in all set on what you personal goals are.

for myself, the added mph and gains in the form of a few tenths, was my goal. avg person not really into improving their times, or maybe a street race or spirited driving... ok i'll give ya that. but from a performance standpoint where you're trying to get the best time...then yea its a welcome addition, and proven.

originally you stated:

considering aftermarket axle-back exhausts for our cars go for twice that, and don't add anything to the car from a performance/drivability standpoint

that's more or less what I question. because from drag track to autox season all of 2017, the car has had more acceleration when compared to having the stock exhaust. period. not yet tuned, but just ordered hp tuners for myself tonight.

your reasoning of statistics is also the same reason why most don't believe in dyno testing just the same. dynos are simply a tuning tool, nothing more. and most times don't have a real translation of real world performance. only dynos within a wind tunnel would be realistic. if you car is doing near 100mph, theres no floor fan that will simulate that volume of airflow in & around cars for starters.

theres been dyno tests of the k&n drop in filter, done back to back to back, and it showed gains, but people drop statistics features and compare their dyno to others, etc...so basically now you have a group that says well the 5-6 whp could be because of this or that.

same thing with the TB testing that has been shown on this forum and camaro5 forums. 7-9 whp gains on various cars, but others argue that the avg gains of 4-5 whp are dyno-variable, and never focus on the mid range peak gains of 7-9whp...

if we think along those lines, then the only thing that makes a difference is nitrous, boost or massive engine builds...where youre adding 50-200whp.

yet porting and polishing, is an artform/procedure these days that gains decent power when done right, simply altering flow? granted it not as much as cams and heads...but it is a piece to the overall puzzle.

in the end, the mph gains usually come from the engine working more efficient/producing more power. not sure how savvy you are with tracks or tuning. but with the density altitude, temps, being the same, most of the variables are cut out.

thus, no one needs a dyno to tell if their car goes consistently faster. REMEMBER hot rodders have been doing it since the 50's with the start of the muscle cars...not every one had fancy rolling roads...you just added parts and went to the track and tried different setups. found out what worked and what didn't.

sadly these days car guys are becoming more virtual than actual. virtual is great for million dollar race teams, but I doubt many here are signed with newman-haas, Penske, etc. so sometimes you have to do it old school and see what ya get. no guesses. just results.

[cooper1965]

Originally Posted by AJL13

Guilty as charged. Not sure how the bypass works, but it does. I've had it on my 2017 for 3 months now, and it's great. Hard to notice a difference in power, but the A8 programming is definitely better.

Originally Posted by AJL13

I ordered it during their black friday promotion last year for $349...hard to beat, considering aftermarket axle-back exhausts for our cars go for twice that, and don't add anything to the car from a performance/driveability standpoint.

349$ is cheap!!
I would be curious to see the ET gains of a Trifecta tune VS axle back.
I wouldn't say axle backs add nothing. I would guess the two would have equally negligible results,..... BUT...
could you elaborate on how the trans characteristics have changed?