Originally Posted by BGB Motorsports

Hi Greg,

I think that you should see them regardless before the end of the month. I hope your event at Mid Ohio went well and by now you should have your replacement Pagid pads. Thanks for the repeat business.

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So far 6 sets of Sport Manifolds have been sent out to various parties. I have asked for an updated estimate on the race manifolds. I figured those would be quicker to ship but it looks like the opposite is holding true. I'm actually waiting on a set of race manifolds that were ordered 2 weeks before the Group Buy started. I think that everything got put on hold once i sent them my GT4 manifolds so that they could confirm the jig was 100%. I am assuming that Bardman got a set from the prior production run. My other U.S. based Sport Manifold customers had no issues but 2 sets sold outside of the U.S. had slight fitment concerns. Those have all been reconciled. There have been no problems with the race manifolds since day 1 but i think that they wanted to be 100% sure because i called Germany 2 months ago expressing my disappointment about the Sport Manifolds and as usual, they answered and stepped up to the plate to make sure i was happy.

Originally Posted by BGB Motorsports

First batch of Sport manifolds are due out for delivery as of this morning! Those who's have shipped were emailed tracking information.

Thanks everyone for your patience, we're almost there!

Originally Posted by Mandaguy

any word on when the second batch of sport headers are shipping? Above you mentioned "later this week" and now it is Thursday.

Originally Posted by BGB Motorsports

...don't get pulled over! If you do, there is however chance the cop will ask you to "get on it as you pull away." Yes, this actually happened.

Originally Posted by neanicu

Funny...it happened to me too. It was a 4way stop sign. The cop had priority but told me to go first. Both our windows were open and he goes with a smile : " get on it ! " I've smiled courteously and continued at a regular pace. I don't mess with these guys. He could've been nice,but I have heard the opposite too : they told someone to get on it and when they did,they pulled them over and gave them a ticket.

Originally Posted by Bardman

I posted this in the Australian thread, but thought I would repeat here as most should be relevant to other markets.

Ok, so my thoughts on the Cargraphics Sports headers and tune from Fitzgerald Racing (Evolve sister company).

To put it very briefly, almost perfect. I'll get to the almost part, but this is a fantastic mod for the GT4.

I still don't have the electronic dyno pic, so I just took a photo of the paper one so people can get a clearer picture of what these changes have done (apologies for potato quality).

So, bottom line is stock power curve, next one up is headers only, and next one up is headers and tune.

Whilst the headers alone did flatten out the curve somewhat, the headers and tune has completely eliminated that mid range dip. You'll also notice that there is quite a lot of white space between H+T vs stock. You immediately feel this on the road.

Whereas the stock car feels like its strangled down low, the car now just pulls and pulls all the way through the rev range. You might think that a mod like this would make a car less civilised and harder to live with day to day - the complete opposite is the truth. Because you are not navigating up and down the mid torque dip (which you do constantly in street driving) the car is extremely easy and comfortable to idle along slowly. I even find myself running in a higher gear than previously when driving slowly as I dont have to keep the revs super high to avoid this "chokey" range.

So, some might be concerned that its all too tame. No fear of that. Plant the foot and it absolutely screams towards redline. It actually reminds me a little of the pull of my old C63. Of course it doesn't have anywhere near that amount of torque, but because you don't have the traction issues of the C63, it actually feels like you are applying similar levels of torque to the road. I'm probably overstating it there as I'm sure if you drove them back to back it wouldn't be as impressive, but it is an amazing feeling nonetheless.

What about the sound? Its really hard to estimate how much louder the car is now at full noise. My best guess is somewhere between 25 and 50%, but that is purely a guess. The good news again is that you have choices. With the sports exhaust button off, you can rev through the range and it doesn't sound significantly different to stock. Reasonably civilised, but still a bit noisy if you have the right foot into the carpet. Sports exhaust button on, and just taking it easy and again, the car is a bit noisy but not over the top. WOT in the high rev ranges, however, and it sounds like a motorsports car. It has a really rich sound (not at all spoilt compared to the stock sound), which really resonates under overpasses and bridges. You'll like it.

One thing that I didn't really understand before this mod was the claims by some tuning houses about the gains to be had by replacing the stock exhaust/mufflers with their own. If you have sports or race headers I totally get it now, and here we get to the 'almost' part of 'almost perfect' that I mentioned at the beginning. The stock exhaust, even with the sports exhaust button activated, does not actually keep the valve open all the time. It opens it according to the current rpms and throttle position (and maybe other factors?). So whats the problem then? Well because you have so much more exhaust flow due to the headers and tune, when the exhaust valve opens it feels a little like popping a cork. At around 4k rpms with only moderate throttle the exhaust valve opens and you get a blurt from the exhaust and the car literally takes off, there is so much latent power being restricted by the valve. You dont get this at WOT as the valve opens earlier, but at part throttle you get it, which is a little bit of a niggle for me, as at part throttle you want things to be smooth, not 'twitchy' as you navigate forwards and backwards over the 4k rpm range.

I have discussed this with the tuner, and they are going to look into a change that just keeps the valves open all the time with the sports exhaust button on. I think this will be the perfect solution, as you can still have the car tame if you want by switching the button off.

In any case, I'm confident they will sort this out. For some it may not be a problem, but for me this car is so close to perfect that it would be a shame not to address this little niggle.

In short a magnificent addition to an already amazing car.

Happy to try and answer any questions people might have.

Originally Posted by neanicu

Funny...it happened to me too. It was a 4way stop sign. The cop had priority but told me to go first. Both our windows were open and he goes with a smile : " get on it ! " I've smiled courteously and continued at a regular pace. I don't mess with these guys. He could've been nice,but I have heard the opposite too : they told someone to get on it and when they did,they pulled them over and gave them a ticket.