jmartpr

Just the one on the exhaust manifold...unless you also consider the OPF on the over axle pipes a cat.

ronbauer

Thanks for the answer. Most newer cars have two cats, one in the header/manifold, and one further downstream.

Since I plan to autocross the car, and the rules say we can replace anything downstream of the final cat, I just wanted to be clear that there was only the one.

Ron

Soul Performance

For all those following this thread, we have been deep into development on the Valved Exhaust System over the last several weeks with a 718 Spyder hence my absence from Rennlist. It has been going exceptionally well and we are finalizing the last iteration as we speak. Expect a full writeup on the process and the results sometime next week, it has been a fun one!


Thanks very much for chiming in with your feedback Joe, we love seeing our products and these cars getting the snot kicked out of them What mic setup are you using and where is it located? Excellent lack of wind noise, though sound is a bit different than what I experienced. I'd love to compare notes

Where are you located? You can still ramp things up a huge amount while staying emissions compliant in most states.

Same question for you, where are you located? We have great relationships with Porsche dealers throughout North America, I'm happy to chat with the dealership you work with and see what they are comfortable doing while maintaining your warranty.

Surprisingly enough I have one fellow running our competition headers with spacers and he hasn't received a CEL yet. I don't expect that to last forever and nor does he, but it's going better than expected so far haha.

As stated above this car has one set of cats located in the manifolds. The over axle pipes have a "particulate filter" in them per the part number descriptions from Porsche. Technically speaking, that's all you need to satisfy that regulation. Are you running nationally or regionally, and what sound restrictions are you working with?

Best regards,

John Gaydos

Poupon McArr

located in GA - so no sniff test, but visual (depending on the person testing...) and OBD checks to my knowledge

wizee

Is this the silenced system? I’m hoping for something that provides a racier tone, but has some degree of silencing with both the flaps open and closed without a particulate filter, so that loud mode isn’t too loud, and the difference between flaps open and closed mode isn’t too drastic when keeping the stock flap control logic and deleting the filter.

Rennolazine

Great to hear!! Looking forward to it. Any thought on offering different silencer options for the valved exhaust. i.e. "quiet muffler" vs more "high flow" muffler? Just throwing it out there. Obviously you are tuning the system to isolate drone with the valves closed. So this may not be viable

Soul Performance

GA is pretty easygoing. As long as you keep cats in the headers, whether they be stock or an aftermarket, you should be able to pass visual and OBD testing without a problem. That gives you quite a few configurations to play with, so we'd have to chat and tailor something to meet your goals. If you need a shop for installation, I'd be happy to refer you to someone familiar with our products in you area. If you're up for a chat, give me a shout at 4848836197. We'll run through everything and come up with a gameplan for whenever you're ready to move forward.

This would be the valved system utilizing our bespoke muffler for this car. Your goals are quite similar to what we had for development, and I would expect this would be a winner for you. I'll be sitting down and putting together an in depth explanation of the experience next week, and may post a brief teaser video later on today while we work on our marketing videos.

Regards,

John

Soul Performance

We tried multiple mufflers that were negligible between them in actual flow characteristics. Due to the confines of the car and our valved exhaust design, any muffler is going to be much smaller and inherently louder than the gigantic PSE muffler comparing valves closed between the two. However that's not necessarily a bad thing, as the tone and sound level of the PSE muffler valves closed is rather underwhelming. The goal of valves closed with our muffler design is to reduce and smooth out overall drone and resonance compared to all other configurations we tested without a muffler, while expecting it to still be more than the PSE muffler, but acceptable to most and with better tone.

Regards,
John

Rennolazine

Sounds like YOU sir, have unintentionally earned a PhD in 718 GT4 exhaust physics as a result of this process

Soul Performance

Don't stroke my ego Pete, you may receive hate mail from my wife and coworkers

jmartpr

Hi John...how about getting some dyno figures for all the 718 products? My plan is still to get the race system but would be interesting to see the gains by ditching the Stock mid pipe with two exhaust paths and doing a single exhaust path.

Soul Performance

Oh we plan on it, and it will be done independently to keep things as accurate and transparent as possible in as many configurations as possible.

To note, if anyone has access to a linked 4WD dyno at a reputable shop familiar with dyno testing modern Porsches, we will happily cover the costs of back to back dyno runs with the stock components and ours. In a perfect world we'd like to have a multitude of third party testing done to ensure repeatable and realistic deltas of performance gains. That said, we would like to consult with the shop to ensure proper testing procedures are followed

Best Regards,
John Gaydos

chalkspyder

I am lucky enough to be the first to receive the new Valved Exhaust System currently in R&D. There is still work going on to complete the system but I had the privilege of having the current prototype fitted on my 2020 718 Spyder (@chalkspyder on IG). BTW, I also had the Soul valve controller installed a few weeks ago and it made such a big difference for me...that was step 1. As John describes in an earlier post, this is a must. Back to the exhaust (step 2)....here is my first impression, both from inside the car and also from outside as it drives by/away.

Standing outside the car:

• Oh my. The clarity and quality of the sound (from about 30 yards back) as it drove away was incredible. A few of those overuns as you upshift could be heard off into the distance. It's not the same as the absolutely perfect stock overruns on my old 981 Spyder but it's a nice bonus knowing that the overruns were taken away from the 2020 GT4 and Spyder.

A brief drive for about 10 minutes:

• At idle, the car sounds about the same as it does stock at idle (or at least I can't tell the difference)
• As you drive off it is very clear that this is different experience. All I can say is that the car sounds like it feels now - powerful. The ear to ear smile starts right around 3500 and gets progressively better as you build the RPMs --- and the sound remains clear and powerful even as it climbs to a higher pitch sound. It does not get as high pitched as my prior 981 Spyder and for sure not the high pitch of the GT3s, but man...it sounds so good. I pumped.
• What is even more exciting is that this experience was before the OAPs are installed (step 3)....that is happening this week so I can't wait to hear how the combination of the new exhaust system and the OAPs sounds.

@Soul Performance You guys have a winner with this one. I'm ready for the final product.

I would normally want to post videos and photos but I won't steal the thunder from Soul. You will see and hear the final product very soon. In fact, there is already a video on youtube of prototype #1 (not the system I just experienced...what I experienced is prototype #2).

Here is the video of prototype #1...gives you an idea:

Rennolazine

Thanks for the writeup and sacrificing time with your spyder. Do you have any clips or comments with stock pse valve programming? It appears the footage is pse off “valves closed” vs valve controller for “valves open”. Im not planning on running a valve controller at this point. With the valves set to always open this is effectively an expensive x pipe which kind of defeats the purpose of the bespoke muffler. John please give us the goods with pse button pressed alone in this comparo.

Soul Performance

We aim to please, I'll take note of the request for the next round of videos

Now that said, the factory PSE programming is a REAL buzzkill compared to every Porsche we've experienced prior. Pressing the PSE button really doesn't do much. It still closed the valves until 5k rpm in first gear and 3800rpm in second gear, that's near 9krpm of in the first two gears that the PSE programming is dampening the exhaust experience. Our valve controller kit will either allow you to maintain this PSE programming, or you can press a button to override the PSE programming and keep them open throughout the whole powercurve. Simply press another button and it's back to PSE programming again. Factory control when you want it, override when you want it, easy peasy : )

Now for those that want to change the PSE programming itself, and tune it to do what you want when you want...that is coming too! Mike Levitas, Tom Chan and the rest of the team at TPC Racing/DSC have been hard at work adding an additional feature to their much loved DSC Modules that allows you to fully program your own valve control. Mike is successfully testing this feature on his personal 718 Spyder, which will be receiving a set of our Competition Over Axle Pipes shortly to throw in the mix. It's a game changer and we are VERY excited for that to come full circle. We are proud to offer their DSC modules to partner with our products, as we have had nothing but exceptional feedback from our customers running them.

Best Regards,
John Gaydos