Building Custom Testarossa Exhaust | FerrariChat

Building Custom Testarossa Exhaust

Discussion in 'Boxers/TR/M' started by deuce49, Jul 11, 2022.

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  1. deuce49

    deuce49 Karting

    Sep 25, 2011
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    Scottsdale
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    BC
    Hey TR friends,

    So I like many others here finally got their dream Testarossa (1990 for me) and absolutely love the car, but the only thing that really just bums me out is the simply pathetic stock exhaust. I am absolutely shocked out how quiet it is, yes I understand it's a GT car, however, I like probably many of you sometimes think the car has died at a stoplight cause I simply can't even hear the car, same goes for start-up sometimes and I hold the starter on longer thinking it didn't fire :D.

    I had to do something about it and is the only real modification I will make on this car. I've been going back and forth with current options available on the market (obviously very limited) and just haven't heard anything I have liked outside of the x-ost which I can't seem to find available anywhere? I have heard the tubi system many times in person and it's to tame for my taste and I am not crazy about having divorced banks. I really want to merge both banks through an x-pipe and possibly omit a muffler.

    I do tend to like a louder exhaust as this is not a daily for me and I like the thought of hearing the flat-12 sing a little bit, knowing full well that it will never have the wail of the modern v12 or even like my 355.... That said, I would like to create a system that can possibly give me a little higher tone, lot's of grunt, merge both banks, a few pops on fuel overrun, and possibly have the ability to have a modular system that I can easily change between straight pipes or race mufflers depending on how I feel or scenario.

    So here I go to embark on this mission and hope, fingers crossed I can achieve the sound and custom modularity I'm hoping for.

    I plan to remove the primary and secondary cats. I'm thinking we create a new set of cat bypass pipes with a really clean merge on both banks and have that feed into an x-pipe and then extend down to the tail pipes. Just a really simple and clean system. That said, I plan to keep the factory piping 60mm which is on the smaller side to try and keep the sound a little higher pitched instead of going to larger standard pipe dimension and deepening the tonality of the exhaust note.

    If y'all are interested I will drop the progress, trials, and tribulations in this thread. If anyone has been down this route or has any advice on achieving the ultimate Testarossa sound. Please let me know, I'm all ears before I get too deep. Thanks
     
    Auraraptor, raysur and EZORED like this.
  2. clean512

    clean512 Formula 3
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    Will you be doing the fab work. Sounds like you got some ideas. Keep it coming
     
  3. EZORED

    EZORED Formula 3
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    Elberoth likes this.
  4. raysur

    raysur Formula Junior
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    I love threads like this. Please keep updating it.
     
  5. deuce49

    deuce49 Karting

    Sep 25, 2011
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    That one sounds pretty good but is almost identical to the tubi with divorced banks. I wonder why these companies are choosing not to merge the banks with an x-pipe? I always find a better tone and exhaust scavenging with an x-pipe.
     
  6. deuce49

    deuce49 Karting

    Sep 25, 2011
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    Well we got the massive coffin out! We also started drawing up a few initial possible scenarios...
     
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  7. EZORED

    EZORED Formula 3
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  8. carguy

    carguy F1 Rookie

    Oct 30, 2002
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    #8 carguy, Jul 13, 2022
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2022
    I'm no top notch fabricator, but years ago I fiddled around with the TR exhaust. I did as mentioned by EZORED above, I hollowed out the precats, and installed pipes in place of the cats, and kept the factory muffler in place. It was a bit louder, and had a slightly deeper tone but not much, not a bad way to go but still did not sound "racy" enough. I also installed a Borla system, which totally eliminated the precats and cats, and was basically 4 separate flow paths, one path for each header, had a nice baritone sound and looked pretty cool. I did some other ideas such as going straight off the headers and inserting "spiral" muffler pipes from a speed shop, which basically have an auger inisde of the pipe to muffle some of the sound - this sounded just awful...and I mean AWFUL...!!!!

    There was a fellow who made a system very similar to your first sketch above, where the cylinder banks were merged, with bullet style mufflers, and it sounded absolutely fabulous. It was a very cool system that had 2 large exhaust tips exiting at the center instead of the sides. I'll see if I can find a video of it. In my opinion it was absolutely the way to go....

    I ended up having to make the collars (stainless of course) that secure pipes to the headers, I think I still have the the raw materials and a jig for that somewhere. The large triangular flanges for the cats are available online, etc. I also still have a bunch of my old sketches and measurements of the TR,...oh those were some good days....
     
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  9. deuce49

    deuce49 Karting

    Sep 25, 2011
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    EZORED likes this.
  10. deuce49

    deuce49 Karting

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    Interesting, yeah my only worry is that it doesn't sound good as we have no clue as there isn't much out there to compare with. I would hate to go through all this and it sounds bad lol
     
  11. deuce49

    deuce49 Karting

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  12. turbo-joe

    turbo-joe F1 Veteran

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    testing, making again/different and again testing ;)

    I once replaced the original cats from a 308 GTSi with straight pipes with 2,5 mm thickness and it sounded terrible, like a bunch of tin cans clattering at each other between 3000 and 5000 rpm. then I did the same with 3 mm thickness pipes and it was really great then
     
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  13. deuce49

    deuce49 Karting

    Sep 25, 2011
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    Yeah that is the one thing I dislike on straight pipe systems that aren't tuned properly. That tinny raspy sound, I think it's terrible.
     
  14. deuce49

    deuce49 Karting

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  15. turbo-joe

    turbo-joe F1 Veteran

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    Y E S ! ! !
     
  16. turbo-joe

    turbo-joe F1 Veteran

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    you are not afraid about the heat?
     
  17. deuce49

    deuce49 Karting

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    That's just a 3d printed mockup to get perfect fitment before production
     
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  18. turbo-joe

    turbo-joe F1 Veteran

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    I thaught you want to use this ;)
     
  19. deuce49

    deuce49 Karting

    Sep 25, 2011
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    So now my fabricator and I are trying to explore possibilities for the x-pipe. We are now effectively merging (2) 3 cylinders on each bank with the first cat bypass, now we will be merging the (2) full banks.

    There are quite a few schools of thought here... number 1 is tone, 2 is scavenging. There are so many ways to build the x-pipe, small window, large window, huge long merge etc. All effect the sound dramatically and of course the effective scavenging. We are limited with space, but are ultimately concerned with sound and getting a slightly higher warm tone with no thin raspy sounds.
    Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
     
    Elberoth likes this.
  20. deuce49

    deuce49 Karting

    Sep 25, 2011
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  21. INTMD8

    INTMD8 F1 Veteran
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    Jun 10, 2007
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    Nice work!
     
  22. clean512

    clean512 Formula 3
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    Love this.
     
  23. theunissenguido

    theunissenguido Formula 3
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  24. turbo-joe

    turbo-joe F1 Veteran

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    there are a lot of things not street/road legal
    my competition is much louder, the phone in the car papers: 100 phone in idle :)
     

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