Stock 4-2-1 headers vs 4-1 headers (Saclam Exhaust System) Tsukuba Circuit (TC2000)

i stumbled across an old school Japanese footage comparing the 355 and the 360. In that footage, there's a short glimpse of a stock 355 Challenge w/slicks doing a time attack on Tsukuba Circuit.

Tsukuba Circuit is a relatvely short track with a nice balance of low speed / mid speed turns. There is one relatively long back straightaway for high powered cars to shine for a bit. Then it leads up to a semi high speed turn and a short straight away.

Tsukuba Circuit is probably the closest track to Chiba and Tokyo, which is where most sports car performance tuners are located. It is a very popular track for Time Attack competitions. All aspects of performance tuning must be carefully balanced. Power, power band, acceleration, handling, weight reduction, braking balance, mechanical grip, aerodynamic grip, transmission gearing, tire selection, etc... There are numerous cases where an underpowered car displayed better results than a higher powered car of the same type simply because it was finely tuned in other areas.

Breaking the 1 min mark is always the goal. 57-59 sec cars are considered to be well-balanced and "fast." 55-56 sec cars are elite. Anything faster than 55 sec is record breaking and probably unsafe for the streets.

Here's video footage of an RSD tuned F355 Challenge. I've actually had a close and thorough look of this car in person when I had visited RSD a few years ago. It is fitted with RSD coilover package. Slightly lightened rear bumper. Lexan glass all around. Maybe even a CF hood. Front Splitter. Light weight mirrors. The only engine mod it has is a Saclam Exhaust system, which is a longer length 4-1 header system into dual mufflers. No cats, no Y-pipe. No ecu mods. They claim the system is adding roughly 25ps on a Dynapack.

http://youtu.be/xAqiMYXw6Ko

I have the car clocked somewhere between 1'02" -03". Definitely in the high 2s. Tire selection in vid is unknown.

Here's a video of a normal F355 Challenge car w/slicks. The entire video is produced by RSD staff. Time Attack starts at about 42:00 min mark.

http://youtu.be/QYyTUNbEeOg

I wanted to share the video as a nice comparison between the 4-1 and 4-2-1 header system. I personally think the 4-2-1 with the Y-pipe sounds better and the overall performance of the car was much smoother. Didnt feel like any power had to be forced. Car also clocked in a faster time at 1'01"-02" secs.

Some other Tsukuba Times to consider for comparison:

Stock F355 (manual) 1'07" secs
Stock 458 1'02"-03"secs
Stock Scuderia 1'07" secs
RSD tuned Scuderia 1'03" secs
RSD tuned 360 (manual) and RSD tuned 360 Challenge (F1) 1'02" secs.
Ferrari F50 1'05" secs
Ferrari F40 1'04" secs