8Y + 8V Exhaust - Valves & Updates Continued
485 BLOG - #2 Exhaust Updates and Valves
Welcome back to our blog! We were hoping to follow up with posting more frequently when initially starting out with our last post.. but things get busy and the blog posting got pushed back. We’re back with good news and some further success with our exhaust systems!
Updates to both
8Y / 8V Exhausts
We’re always looking to improve our products. Nothing is ever going to be perfect and suitable for everybody first round, but we try to take feedback from our customers to improve. We’ve integrated a few new options to our exhausts that will be both functional and up the bar on general quality.
Key features
Valved closed routing - The closed valve routing has been changed from 3” to 2.5” and paired with a longer muffler. This combo will improve the level of sound when the valves are open vs closed. When the valves are closed, the exhaust is forced through 2.5” routing and the longer muffler, vs prior we had 3” closed routing and a bit shorter of a muffler. This does not reduce flow, as when the valves are open, priority pathway of flow is 3”.
Slip fit in exhaust mid pipe - This helps in a variety of ways. The biggest reason for the slip in the mid pipe is that it’s the longest piece on the exhaust. Shipping these parts is not easy and this makes for much easier shipping. This also adds more flexibility upon install. With the extra rotation, you can clock the mid pipe accordingly to accommodate differences upon all vehicles. Not all cars are the same. Different sway bars, mid pipes etc. The more accurate adjustability, the better.
Helmholtz resonator - This is not yet pictured as we’re still introducing this, but a huge addition to our exhausts. Everybody is different in terms of sound. You could send one person a straight piped exhaust for these cars and they’ll love it, send it to someone else and they’ll hate it. Same with the “drone factor”. I tend to think that all cars running an aftermarket exhaust other than a factory system will end up with some form of drone and everybody’s definition varies. The helmholtz resonator is specifically designed in length, tubing size, and placement. The end product eliminates cabin noise. This will be an option for those who want to add it, or not. Pictures of this will be added soon, once we’ve confirmed the best variation of sizing.
Success. . . VALVES!
Exhaust valves have got to be the biggest challenge when integrating into the exhausts. At first, they seem so simple, then they have a mind of their own. The main issue when utilizing the factory servo on an aftermarket valve body is the spring. The OEM spring is great. Works perfect, as on the factory exhaust. Recently we went through a ton of troubleshooting as I was bending springs to send out with a normal order. The exhaust valves would not stop clicking! I come to realize the clocking of the servo wasn’t as it was from when it would come off a factory exhaust. They self adjusted to the wrong position, resulting in sleep loss. The fix was resetting servos on the factory exhaust, literally forcing them on and cycling the car through open/closed modes. Little did I know they will self adjust. This way we can now fit springs to our exhaust accurately again. I haven’t experienced this ever through making numerous of these now. This leads me to another new feature for the 8V that we are going to be utilizing along with the 8Y. OEM spring functionality will be added to our 8V exhausts soon, but for now, we’ve figured out the absolute best way to send you springs that will make your servos not click and not rattle in either open or closed position.
8Y OEM valve servos
We’ve been building 8Y RS3 exhausts for a little over a year now and with every single order prior to now, we used an aftermarket valve controller, and valve delete plugs. This was pain, obviously, and did not integrate with the factory functionality when changing modes to open/close the valves, which kind of sucks when buying an expensive car, you want it to work nice.. right? That was the only way we could do it though. Now, we finally designed brackets to use on our exhaust bodies and they work! This is huge for us. Pictured below is our valve body with an oem servo bolted up. These are fabricated precisely and everything was specifically designed to accommodate proper spacing and spring compression etc. We’re super happy to announce this. A big thank you to one of our local customers Andrew, who patiently waited a long time for us to design this and let us install it on his vehicle!
This concludes our blog post. We hope whoever reads these posts finds some form of information that they didn’t know about, or can learn the behind the scenes things that go into making our exhaust systems one of a kind. As always we strive for quality and to provide our customers the best product we can. Thank you!
-Nick