SuperTrapp Mufflers?

[ATaylorRacing]

Super Traps are crap in my opinion. To make them flow well you need lots of extra discs and longer srews for them.

I put one on a 1994 Plymouth Duster with the 3.0 ltr V6 efi Mitsu motor in place of the stock muffler. With no discs it was a teeny bit quicker and quieter than the open pipe, but slower than the stock set up. With the discs it came with all installed it was still slower than stock and louder. After every two passes I would add two discs and every time it would go a bit quicker. At a total of 12 discs it was as quick as the stock muffler. The quickest passes were done with 18 discs!! When I got to 20 discs and more it stared to go slower again.

I had bought the 4" muffler with the stainless casing and the extra discs I had were bought used. After driving for a year the case screws rusted out and all the discs and muffler packing ebded up blowing out of the casing and got smashed by a semi. I then had a very loud stainless megaphone. To my suprize a 2 chamber 2.5" flowmaster was exactly equal in powerto that ST and sweeter sounding too. Both of these set ups only picked the car up about a tenth of a second in the 1/4 mile and the FE was better by maybe a quarter of a mpg better...not worth the cost.

One last note...putting a gutted cat in place of the stock one did not make it quicker in the 1/4....made it about .4 slower and over 1 mpg worse FE. Only after I did several other mods to the car did it finally respond to a freer flowing exhaust!

[slurp812]

Originally Posted by cfg83

slurp812 -

Ha ha, I think you're right, mea culpa! When I was looking at the website, the ordering details looked like they were "motorcycle-centric", especially with the "spark arrestor" comment. Still, I wonder if the "disk tips" could be adapted all by themselves.

CarloSW2

I be they could. I wonder if a 4-stroke would benefit from a power valve? a few old 2-stroke street bikes had them. it restricted the exhaust at low RPMS to give them a bit more bottom end.

[metromizer]

A statement worth repeating...

Originally Posted by ATaylorRacing

...Only after I did several other mods to the car did it finally respond to a freer flowing exhaust!

Despite what the car magazine articles (that we all know are an extension of what the advertisers message is) adding a 2-1/2" mandrel bent stainless exhaust sytem with almost-zero-backpressure cat and muffler won't necessarily increase torque at any rpm.

I found you really need to experiment with your particular combination when tuning a system for racing, I have to believe the same would hold true for max FE.

[93Cobra#2771]

You would get better bang for the buck with a more standard straight flow through muffler such as dynomax, magnaflow, etc.

The supertraps have been around a long time and did indeed start as a motorcyle muffler. You need to size them correctly for your application. And you can run them without the discs all together.

[Hasbro]

I've never seen them on street cars but they have been used forever for road racing. Almost 30 years ago people like David Vizard poo-pooed them due to poor performance. Not sure about fe, though.

[Concrete]

Originally Posted by metromizer

A statement worth repeating...



Despite what the car magazine articles (that we all know are an extension of what the advertisers message is) adding a 2-1/2" mandrel bent stainless exhaust sytem with almost-zero-backpressure cat and muffler won't necessarily increase torque at any rpm.

I found you really need to experiment with your particular combination when tuning a system for racing, I have to believe the same would hold true for max FE.

can you explain more
I am looking at exhaust mods for other reasons
but simplifying and shorting the exhaust seemed like a good thing to do along the way

[ATaylorRacing]

Originally Posted by metromizer

A statement worth repeating...
.........I found you really need to experiment with your particular combination when tuning a system for racing, I have to believe the same would hold true for max FE.

EXACTLY! On all of the cars that I have drag raced I have found out the folowing:

If a turbo is in place the bigger or less restrictive, or no exhaust at all had the best performance, even when all else was stock.

On my carb or efi cars...except that 94 Plymouth...a better flowing exhaust worked the best, but open exhaust worked worse than the stock set up. It did take several mods to make the open header mod work better than a larger full length system with a good performance muffler in place.

Starting a few years ago some dragstrips required that none of the sportsman cars exceed a certain decibel reading from a certain distance and a lot of the guys that run rail dragsters fiound quicker and faster passes after they had huge collector mufflers put on!

[metromizer]

Originally Posted by Concrete

can you explain more
I am looking at exhaust mods for other reasons
but simplifying and shorting the exhaust seemed like a good thing to do along the way

You might think so, but most of the time, not true. An OEM engine combination was assembled with a cat, muffler, and long exhaust pipe in mind. Get away from the OEM operating parameters (say you want to run the engine at a higher average rpm) and things change.

There is a lot of published theory associated with tuned intake and tuned exhausts dating back tot he 1950's... the OEMs make lots of compromises, a sort of one-size-fits-all tune for the maases who buy their vehicles in combination with what is inexpensive to manufacture or pull out of the parts bin from another model. (check out Burn's Stainless, SPD, and Performance Welding Racing Headers websites and others for the short story on exhaust theory).


Most of the aftermarket exhausts sold these days are for the customer who will be using a higher rpm range (the street racer or hot rod guy). Then there's the towing and motorhome market, who want a system tuned for low end torque (check out Gale Banks and Gibson exhaust sites). Because of different needs, it's often easy to improve on a stock exhaust system.

In general, a tuned header and collector will net torque gains within the rpm range it was designed for, but you need to size the primary tube length, diameter, and collector style for your particular engine. It's displacement, camshaft and head flow ex. to int. ratio, desired operating range, muffler vs no mufler all come into play.
I mentioned in another thread that in dyno testing one of my race engines, I experimented with several headers and mufflers to find what I was looking for. Theory gets you close, experimentation gets you close to optimal.

[dremd]

I had one on my first VW (66 bus).

My evaluation at the time (NOTE: I was 16) was that it was louder than my old generic 1.75" inlet muffler regardless of how many disk I put in and it took me about a car length longer to get to 60 if I "tuned it for best performance, and 10 more car lengths if I tuned it for lowest noise.

Of course I went back to the generic one which for all I know was a super muffler . . . .

[Concrete]

Originally Posted by metromizer

You might think so, but most of the time, not true. An OEM engine combination was assembled with a cat, muffler, and long exhaust pipe in mind....
...In general, a tuned header and collector will net torque gains within the rpm range it was designed for, but you need to size the primary tube length, diameter, and collector style for your particular engine. It's displacement, camshaft and head flow ex. to int. ratio, desired operating range, muffler vs no mufler all come into play.
I mentioned in another thread that in dyno testing one of my race engines, I experimented with several headers and mufflers to find what I was looking for. Theory gets you close, experimentation gets you close to optimal.

let me clarify my position
I'm not able to perfectly "optimize" - no track or dyno

but in line with this thread I am looking at simplification of the exhaust
header will remain unchanged and I will keep a muffler
but I'm looking at reducing the long and twisted path of the exhaust
(it is crisping my wiring and rattling loose due to poor geometry)
so this is a very mild exhaust change compared to what your are describing

Can taking half the distance & bends out of a truck length exhaust help?
or is it too complicated to make that call without a dyno

(BTW - I would be retuning the ECM to match after any change)