Mike/A.W.E.

Toby, after getting to know you by your posts, I expected you to be the guy that demanded the highest quality part for your car. That meant no corners cut or shortcuts taken!

It makes me wonder, are the standards of Porsche owners really not as high as we thought they were?

What happened to wanting the most for your money? What happened to wanting parts engineered and manufactured as well as factory backed racing teams? What happened to trying to squeeze out every last bit of power no matter how small?

I have to be honest, I am at a loss here. Your post has taken some of the wind out of my sails.

First, the difference between hand finishing the welds for internal flow vs. not is the difference between buying the best vs “that’ll do”. Except that one should expect to pay less for “that’ll do”.

Also, our headers are not the shiny and pretty examples. They are the opposite. We have a “non-functional” external polish finishing on our headers unlike the ones you bought. We would rather spend the man hours on the finishing and detail work on the inside where it counts the most!

I will probably get flamed and crucified for being the guy that had to point this stuff out in public with a competitors product, but it's just too obvious. I apologize in advance, but our Fabricators and Engineers work too hard to have this stuff overlooked.

See below:

Arrows in red indicate the weld issues and the blatant blockage of flow. There is no finishing work! That weld should have been ground down. You will never see this on any of our headers or any other pro-motorsport style header. Refer to the pictures I posted.

The arrow in blue shows a flange that was not fly cut. Fly cutting the flange after welding will insure that when mounted it is perfectly flat to the head. It will not distort and there will no leaks over time, nor will it stress the head studs because it was not sitting flush.

The arrow in green indicates the cheated radii at the bend. Do I have to go any further? Obviously not ideal in terms of flow. This is a blatant shortcut.





If anyone else can see or appreciate the differences, can you please raise your hand?

Alex (UK)

Just wanted to butt in here and say that I am finding this thread absolutely fascinating!!

It's rare that we get insight such as Mike's. Thankyou Mike for your valued information on this topic.

As a CG/RS-Tuning fan myself I can see what Toby is saying - it's all about the numbers on the dyno! If there are noticeable visual imperfections then the great dyno numbers are in spite of these!

I myself am not really interested in headers for my Turbo. My CG544 Stage II kit is plenty for me, both in terms of power and money spent. If I was on the market though, the CG or AWE headers would be top of the pile.

Please continue...

Mike/A.W.E.

My pleasure.

I just hope I am not coming off confrontational. I am not saying the CG headers will lose power, I have never tested them, I just want to point out why they are leaving power on the table.

If you want more insight on how we develop our products, check out this thread. It's loaded with pictures and technical data.

See here:
http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/9...-e-tuning.html

Alcyon

To see the end of the story please see the GT2 forum

TB993tt

Mike
Many thanks for taking the time doing the great explanation with pics

It is quite hard to write my thinking without demeaning what you guys (AWE) are trying to achieve which in general I am impressed with, exceptional value packages which work but IMO do not actually represent the numbers coughed out by your dyno - not your fault, you use your tool and go by what it says just like everyone else in your market.....

I have said this before..... it starts with the tool, RS have this very expensive engine dyno, (same brand as Ferrari F1) and the many years of experience in how to replicate race and road conditions, they know through countless race campaigns, from testing to the limit (they regularly test new engine designs to destruction, they are the only ones who found out that a % of Carrera GTs have a flaw in the engine block casting which requires a new block at $50K if it is to be tuned.....) how to tune turbo engines to maintain their hp....

They have a very simple approach to new magic parts, they test them on this dyno. Some parts work and a lot don't - the magic plenums (I know not advocated by AWE) do NOT although plenty of chassis dyno operators will show you different..... It is a very simple but effective approach which has proven to work. It is for this reason that whilst I love the chat about why theoritically the CG headers may look like a dogs dinner and should not work but I know that they built a few sets in different "theoretically" good specifications and chose the one which gave the best results USING THEIR MEASUREMENTS which different to others...

Now I accept that maybe I have a horridly manufactured set which missed the QC inspection and they are not to specification ? This brings me to my other criteria which is test the performance on the road - something has made my car go 100-200kph half a second quicker so the crappy headers can't be holding it back that much..... do you happen to know what your exhaust/header package does to the 100-200kph or 60-130mph compared to a stock GT2 - yes I've seen your dyno sheets but...................

Just to re-iterate, I like AWE stuff -they are the good guys

Alex (UK)

0.5s saving between 100-200kph!! Wow that's great just from headers Toby.

SportAuto clocked a 7.4s time for 100-200kph I believe for a stock GT2, so that would put you now faster than my CG544 Turbo (7.1s)

Damn - maybe I need some new headers after all (although saying that I believe the CG544 car SA tested already had CG headers).

eclou

Toby in these cars the exhaust manifolds are realistically not the main point of restriction - the cats are probably the main choke point for power. The factory manifolds are not too bad for mass production units. I think that only as the power levels increase would the headers become more critical as we try to squeeze that last ooompf of power from the system. I doubt that the CG headers would cost any power - they are surely giving you some gains but as Mike pointed out if the welds on the exhaust ports could be cleaned up a tad it would likely flow even more.

BTW have you any impressions now of the new vs the old (997 vs 993)?

TB993tt

Alex, it is cats and headers, the cats are supposed to be worth 21PS.

Re the 100-200kph time, for true comparison I measured my car pre tuning at the same venue similar conditions and got 7.95s with after between 7.2s and 7.5s - the car had 500 miles first test and 1600 second so there is probably some break in help there also.

The other documented GT2 test was in Auto Motor und sport 100-200kph in 8s.... you really have to test same car/track/conditions to stand any chance of decent comparables, you really can't rely on yours being 7.1s, you need to test it, that CG car may have had some tweaks ?

TB993tt

Gene, agree with everything you say apart from reservations about the cleaning up giving measurable (RS style) hp, theoretically yes but I am guessing the ones RS tested/developed had a similar finish (to mine) and the cleaning up was deemed not beneficial....maybe ?

Love this car it is actually spot on for a hard core 993er I certainly wouldn't want it any softer it has just the right amount of harshness built in with all the controls having a degree of "chunkiness" which hits the spot. The engine has a great and unique character with a solid and responsive torque delivery and a searing top end screaming to the rev limiter (which needs to be 500rpm higher really). I think the looks are just right for me, quite low key but subtley different from other 7s......
Obviously the handling is far different from a 4WD 993 but quite similar to a 993 2WD but with the added safety features TC/PSM the ability to play the hooligan in perfect safety......

TB993tt

Thought I would find out a little more about my "dogs dinner" headers.... turns out they are more like the "dogs b*llocks"....

They were developed for the 996tt specifically for the Alzen 700hp monster (see below) 4 prototypes were tested by RS before the final design was signed off. The tube material is special and very durable, the diameter is very specific, the welds are deliberate and thick, the unfinished nature noted by Mike is there because it does not make any difference to power but lots of weld is used for strength - these headers are the best

eclou

The tautness of the Gt2 sets is well apart from a standard 997tt. I was also very surprised with the rush of power the Gt2 motor experiences climbing over 5k rpms - seems like the rush will never end!

Mike/A.W.E.

Ok, I'll bite.

So what is this special material? They don't look like Inconel.

Toby, please. Are you pulling my chain???

For the record, I have no idea if your headers lose, do nothing, or gain hp and torque. We have never tested them.

I am simply trying to point out how you can achive MORE hp and torque with proper design and manufacturing. Our technique is how pro level headers are made.

Lastly, I have seen enough of those headers to know that those were not "missed" by QC.

I wonder how much faster you could have gone with our stuff?

LAT

Mike; you are obviously conscientious and want to give your customers value for their dollar then take the step and get an engine dyno and do what the credible Europeans are doing. The RS Tuning, Ruf and Manthey to name a few. It would be good to see and use such a facility on our side of the pond.

TT Surgeon

Nice shot Toby, personally I don't think there is any significant hp to be had by cleaning up the welds on a street car. A race car trying to squeeze every last ounce of HP is a different story. Also agree with others about the engine dyno, it's the only way to really see, just too many variables with a chassis dyno. But, who wants to pull their engine to check header hp?

TB993tt

Mike
I hope I have answered your thoughts above ? It seems that maybe I in fact do know what I am doing by buying a product which meets my criteria and that my criteria may actually be more important than your theoretical musings ?

The first graph below is standard 500 miles ZERO mods 0 DegC 60-130 in 8.3s


The graph below is same track 10 degC cats and headers 1600 miles RS engine dyno proven at 560PS/700NM....... 60-130 in 7.8s


This has been a good thread and I am pleased that I have been able to show real data to back up my tuners numbers

BTW.... I am also getting a slight clutch slippage at 4000rpm when a bring the torque in abruptly - engine dyno 700NM