Exhaust System Tech, Myths and Much More...with Magnaflow's Rich Waitas

This is the On All Cylinders podcast.

Powered by Summit Racing.

Your host for today is Summit Racing's David Fuller with special guest, Rich Waites from MagnaFlow.

Here we go.

Welcome to another on all cylinders podcast. I am your host for this go around Dave. And, for this episode, I bought in some reinforcements. I've got Justin and Derek from the Summit side, and, we're actually on location. Guys, tell me where

we're at here. We are in a beautiful, sunny Oceanside, California at the MagnaFlow facility.

Yes. And we've been, taking a tour of the facilities here and, learning a lot about, different exhaust tech and what goes into development for MagnaFlow products. Derek, initial impressions on your side.

The initial impressions that I have are the level of expertise by far and away and some of the best r and d I've ever seen.

Yeah. The r and d side of this place absolutely blew my mind and it's insane. I'd expect people walking around with clipboards and white lab coats. The just the amount of equipment and the thought process they put into it and, you know, making fantastic exhaust systems is kinda crazy.

Derek, you mentioned the level of expertise, and that brings us to our guest. Rich Waitas from MagnaFlow is going to continue the educational process here as we talk about some different, exhaust tech misconceptions, maybe some mistakes people make when purchasing exhaust products. He's seen it all. And we've heard a lot of that through the process of, of filming some of the videos that we've done out here. So, Rich, first of all, thanks so much.

And thanks for the opportunity to do the podcast here on-site.

Yeah. It's been great to have you guys here and kinda take you around the facilities and kinda show you what goes on behind the scenes so that the stuff I say to you here makes a lot more sense. I know it's a pleasure to be a part of it. Obviously, you guys have been partners with Summit for so long, so, it's nice to finally have you come out here and, experience what it is to be a part of the MagnaFlow team.

Yeah. It's super cool. And like kinda Dave said, we appreciate your hospitality having us out. It's been a lot of fun to see this facility. And as I kinda always say, I freaking love science and we've learned so much when we've been here.

I think a lot of people don't understand it's much more than just pipes under the car. You know, in today's modern vehicles, we're adapting to all the computer systems that are there and being sensitive to all what the sensors are reading and understanding that there's thresholds and limits. It's not simply that we just gotta make it flow the best. In order to make it sound right, we have to make it function right first.

Yeah. I think some of that evolution of of the vehicles, you mentioned, you know, today's performance cars, and you guys offer products for classic muscle trucks. Today's performance cars, as you said, let's start there. How has the evolution of the performance car? How has that changed, you know, how you guys develop products and how people might choose the right products for their vehicle?

I think that's probably one of the biggest things that we have to contend with with pretty much any of the modern, muscle cars that are out there. We're talking about, you know, Hellcat, our chargers, challengers, mustangs, Camaros, but it applies to just about everything out there. I don't care if we're working on a BRZ, FRS, you know, anything that we are putting a performance exhaust system on. We're happy to be very cognizant of the control systems that the PCM is working with. And what used to be in the old days, like, hey, you know what?

You got a carburetor, and, when you increase exhaust flow, we're gonna lean out the mixture, so you just can go in there and turn a few screws, change your metering rod and power valve, whatever it is for the type, and you're you're fine. Well, today, it's not that easy even though it is a plug in function and adjusting an injector, scaler or something to that nature in the tune, it still requires a degree of expertise, knowledge, and or the equipment. So, when we're looking at trying to take care of the general consumer that's looking to bolt on products, we can't take something outside of the ability of the threshold of the computer to learn to. So not only are we trying to be most efficient, we can only be efficient within that window and, you know, if the the vehicle has limitations on how much timing it can add, how much fuel it can add, that will limit the amount of, total, exhaust benefit that we can put in there. So the last thing we wanna do is find that threshold, take it over that threshold so the computer can't compensate, then it runs over rich, over lean, and over time, the computer's compensation is gonna take away the power that we observe.

Yeah. It's kinda like building a sandwich in that aspect is, you know, you have to layer things and make it It all has to work together. Yeah. The whole development side and kinda thinking about the total package, I think is super important, and you guys knock that out of the park.

It's definitely one of those things that I would say, it's hard to imagine when we talk about what the product looks like. You know, we see it's a part that sits behind the motor. It is a component that seems to be behind the last sensor, but that doesn't mean it isn't still affecting the total system, and that's, I think, the biggest, misconception that comes out there is, like, well, you know, most exhaust systems are built the same, and I honestly can say, having been in this industry for, you know, 25 years of my life and spent 20 of those years here, watching what goes on behind the closed doors, it's definitely much more than just trying to figure out how to make the pipe bigger.

So for your customers, are they typically looking, for more performance, different sound, combination of both? And, you know, how do you go about instructing them on which direction to go based on that?

Well, it's a it's a tough question too because, I think a lot of people Maybe I'll take a step back. Our business is quite big in the exhaust world. It's not just performance exhaust, you know, we've got our entire product line and the primary of our business is now in the emissions world. And, some people scratch their head and say, well, how does that affect everything? Well, it's actually the most difficult part of our business is trying to be compliant.

And you gotta remember too, we're in a day and era where removing catalytic converters just isn't a thing. We are in a place where the OEMs have spent tremendous amounts of time to make sure that those devices are actually capable of operating under we have, you know, a 1024 horsepower, a 1025, I forget the exact number of horsepower, you know, the the new, demon 170s that are street legal producing 4 digit numbers through a catalytic converter. So the immediate thought that, you know what, we're just gonna remove this device and the perception that that's a part of the problem is kind of old mentality. There are different ways to continue to tune and calibrate and make sure that that vehicle remains legal, and also, understanding it's not detrimental to power. And I think that's, in the big picture of what we do is something that we have to understand and leading then now to more where your question was in the world of performance, how do we pick out what's right?

Well, we figure out what the car is compatible for. You know, what can we do within the context of how it's designed? Where is the last cat? Where is the break point? What's comfortable in the car?

Because that's something that we vary quite a bit based upon the type of vehicle. You know, we build a Mustang, we actually tune it for the acoustic experience we think a Mustang owner wants. That's not gonna be the same as, let's say, our Dodge Ram truck owner. That's not gonna be the same as the guy who's running his Toyota Tacoma in an overland situation. So, it is really about listening to what the consumer wants in those particular categories we're making the product.

I've learned it's not a one size fits all. You know, having the all the different exhaust profiles and kinda be able to get a tailored sound is really cool.

You mentioned the the Mustang. You guys are in the process of of developing products all the time. Tell us a little bit about that development process that you guys go through.

Yeah. I mean, the first thing we do is we look at historical data. Obviously, the 650 is in a long line of generational vehicles, and it's really a sister vehicle to the 550 before it. It's not a complete revamp. It's a derivative chassis.

It's a derivative motor, but all those small elements only give us a starting point. And the way we look at it is it's a new application, and therefore, with a different price point, we have a different consumer, therefore, we have different needs, we always go back to the drawing board to figure out what it is we need to do as an exhaust company to bring out what that vehicle is. And every year and every generation of Mustang, that slightly changes. You know, there are certain generations you can go back to and say, this is kind of a drag car. And if you can kinda go back to certain generations and say, well this is one that people use for kind of the road race kind of thing.

Other ones, you know, when you're talking about the general population of v 6 owners and now 4 cylinder owners, are they using them for commuting and how do we still complement what that's meant for? So, our engineering team, our marketing team goes to bat to figure out what one of our product lines is this gonna be. Is this gonna be a competition series, something for the street, one of our neo series? And those give us some guidelines on how we're gonna start that development process because, at the end, we're in the business of making performance exhaust, so it has to perform. So it's gonna go to the dyno, we're gonna make sure that we can baseline it and generate more power within the context of how the vehicle's PCM and their, the engine management system's working.

Then number 2, we gotta make sure it's comfortable because the biggest thing that we found is that, today, the person spending 60 plus $1,000 on a, you know, a brand new 24 GT Performance, it's not a small investment. And they're probably gonna have to dual purpose the car. So we can't do one at the sacrifice of the other, where in the past, or especially in older applications, we can have a race series that we pay no attention to drone. We look at minimizing weight. We don't look at the character sound being as important as maximum flow.

But that's where today's cars, we have to have a little bit more balance and that's where things like the XMA, the Neo systems come out because we are looking at total flow, but we're making sure that, yes, we're gonna add some weight with some other components, whether it's the NDT resonators or quarter wave resonators. We're gonna make sure that that experience not only is a good sounding one, but it is comfortable for the fact of a it's a dual purpose car.

Some of the experiments, for lack of better terms, scientific on on the flow bench that you guys did, kinda leads us to one of the common misconceptions that you guys kinda debunked out there about the flow rates of a muffler versus a straight through pipe. And and so tell us a little bit about that. And I do wanna get into some misconceptions and common myths out there, but that's that's the first one because we did do the test.

Yeah. And, that's probably one of the biggest ones that, people have out there is because they're so used to seeing, you know, in historical sense, you know, I've got a race car, a drag car, and it's open Right? You know, you've got the dump right after the collector. And the idea is, well, high performance equals noisy. It's loud.

It's got the least amount of parts or components in it. And as we showed on the flow bench, you know, the straight piece of tubing actually flows less than a perforated tube straight through a muffler. And I know that's something that's always shocking and that's one of the reasons why I run the test for those that come in for the first time is that it is counterintuitive. Counterintuitive though doesn't make it not true and that's the part we run into oftentimes is that, hey, you know what? I want a straight pipe because that's what's gonna make the most power.

Well, if we're talking about power generated from flow capacity, that's not necessarily the case and as we found, 18 inches of 3 inch pipe will not outflow the straight through perforated core 3 inch muffler. So that's something I think that kinda needs to be put into consideration is it's a common thought is muffler equals restriction, and that's not always the case. In some case, it could even enhance the airflow.

You certainly blew my mind with that, and that was the cool part is, you know, as working after that test, you're like, I'm not gonna spoil this for you because it's just gonna blow your mind. And it was cool to see a a flow bench used not on cylinder heads and it'd be like a multi application deal.

Yeah. We use that flow bench as really just a tool to benchmark air capacity. It is a laminar flow device. In other words, the exhaust system and, you know, we're talking about internal combustion motors that have anywhere from, you know, 3 cylinders these days, all the way up till, you know, 10 and 12. But we have pulse fire.

And what we what we use that flow bench for is to simulate maximum capacity. So we're pressurizing that column with the most amount of air we can, to simulate what would a, you know, 500 horsepower, what would a 600 horsepower vehicle be pushing through, and if given true laminar flow, which would be the most efficient. And that helps our our engineers design which pipe diameter, which muffler internal, core diameter suffices for what we need because oftentimes, again, we were talking about things that, you know, people have misconceptions about is like, oh, you know, I'm making 500 horsepower, I better be using dual 3 inch. Well, you only need to be using dual 3 inch if the biggest restrictor that you have in there is something that is going to cause the total airflow to drop because 2, 3 inch tubes is gonna flow much more than the 500 horsepower motor can. But if your mufflers, due to the choice you've picked and the style you've picked, are your restrictor, you can even have a 3 or 4 or 3 and a half, let's say, dual 3, 3 and a half inch system.

And if you have a restrictive muffler, your 3 and a half system is gonna be inadequate.

So let's I'll go way back to a basic exhaust 101 here. Just talk a little bit about scavenging, scavenging effect, what it is, and how, you know, people should put that to work.

Yeah. Scavenging is probably one of the most, talked about elements from the basic cylinder port on, and, basically, anything we do with an exhaust system is already happening after combustion. So what we wanna do is try to create any way that we can, as the name implies, scavenge or pull additional, load off of that engine through effects of already used or wasted energy. So, in the case of, like a, my cylinder head port going to a long tube header or short tube header, the benefit of any header and the length of the runners is gonna basically be affected by where the first event takes place. And what I mean by that is we're talking about a stepped header, when we go from one tubing size to another, that creates an event and that event causes an equal and opposite reaction.

So, let's say we have that pulse leaving the cylinder head traveling, you know, several inches down to the first step. When that expansion event happens, it sends a negative pressure wave known as a vacuum pulse back to that cylinder, and if it's a single cylinder it's attached to, it's gonna go back and help draw additional exhaust gases out through that while that exhaust valve is open. Now, let's say we go further downstream and we get further from that step into a collector. Well, that's longer time, which means the valve may have already opened or closed once. But effectively, the time it takes to get down to the collector, create the, reversion pulse and the time it takes to get back to the cylinder head, we wanna make sure that that length is long enough in time that we get to use that negative pulse again to help evacuate that cylinder further.

And what we're really trying to do is get those spent exhaust gases that are inside that cylinder from that last combustion cycle out with the least amount of energy. Because if you can imagine, we have that, piston moving back up to top dead center as we're trying to push those gases out, there's gonna be a certain amount of volume of gas because the piston, obviously, due to the combustion chamber size, isn't gonna be the same size as 0. There's gonna be a number of cc's of gas that are gonna be spent, and that's gonna mix with the intake charge, which means we're gonna have less usable air for the next cycle. Scavenging helps us produce a more empty cylinder, and in some cases, when there's a good amount of valve overlap, could actually aid in cylinder filling by creating a vacuum charge at the top when that intake valve is open and the exhaust is still open, we can use that pressure wave tuning to help draw more of that air in for a more complete filling on that next that next cycle.

You You know, when you're building a car, it's always one of the upgrades. You're like, oh, I need headers to increase that scavenging effect over a manifold. And, you know, just to actually learn how it works you know, different header because, you know, there's different headers. There's you have 4 equal length tubes into a collector. You have tri wise.

There's so much that goes into it. And It's crazy how much of a performance gain is it. Now you'd think you're like, oh, I'm just encorking this motor and letting it breathe more. The performance side of it really is the scavenging.

Yeah. And that's just reducing the amount of work. If you think about it, that piston, is pushing up in a cylinder that has spent gases, it's got energy it's wasting that it's not going through that crank to your wheels, but it's being forced against compressing gas again. So, the scavenging effect though still can take place even further than the headers down, you know, we talk a lot about crossover pipes. You got h pipes, x pipes, things of that nature, but those balance tubes are another scavenging point yet further down.

So the idea through the exhaust system is as many points as you can, you're gonna have these crossover points where you have interactions between 2 pulses that help bring more of that energy that's waste energy leaving the back, use that waste energy to help make the engine run more efficiently.

That's something I wanna get into and kinda get into the nitty gritty science about h pipe versus x pipe. What's better? What is the purpose of both and how they can, you know, each has their own situation that can be beneficial in?

They're both of a different design, and I think really when you start looking at a crossover in general, we've all heard the, you know, the true duels of the classic years where you have 2 independent pipes working off each bank of cylinders, 4 cylinder. It's gonna be all in line. Anyways, you're talking about any v pattern motor or opposed 4 cylinder. You've got banks on the left and right. And if they don't interact with another, we're not taking advantage of the scavenging, but there's also distinct sound things.

If you remember, like, the fifties cars that had true dual exhaust on v eights, there's a very different sound to them. They they have sort of like a a rasp and then kind of a, back burble. You get off the throttle and they almost buzz as the reversion pulse tries to come back in that very long tube. So if we wanna tune out those sounds, you know, there are certain pipes that are better at that than the others. And each pipe will help get rid of that, but it doesn't do so in a fashion as efficiently as an x pipe when it comes to creating a scavenging effect.

And that's I think the best way I can describe the 2 is, they both serve the similar purpose, which is to balance pressure from the left and right, and they act as a, tuning device for scavenging at that instance, and they also work as a tuning device of a device for sound. A lot of late model vehicles use variations or couplings of both, where they have the left and right bank. I think the most recent one that we had come in has an x pipe located behind the muffler. So I think I'm looking at, what would it be? I think it was the Ford Raptor Bronco.

It runs a muffler and then behind it, actually even in the, I think with the F150 raptor as well, it's got an x pipe located behind the muffler. So it's not there so much for the scavenging effect. I think a lot of those pulses are interacting inside that muffler, which has got common shared area. When it gets behind there, it's being used almost exclusively to balance pressure waves so that you don't get that annoying drone. And that's where it's used more as a sound tuning component than it is being used as a scavenging tool.

And that's something that we need to take in consideration in modern vehicles is that, you know, we got emissions controls and catalytic converters and all these other devices that are in stream, and they do, have, diminishing effects on what a scavenging device can do once it's placed behind it even further back in the system. So when we talk about, you know, vehicles that are optimizing an x pipe, usually, we want those x's and h's happening where there's a lot of gas velocity. Because if the velocity's down, remember, wherever that event is taking place, we're having to send that negative pressure wave all the way back up into the cylinder head to have its net effect. So when we have that x pipe way in the back of the vehicle, we're not gonna necessarily have as much of a performance benefit. But it still will have the acoustic benefit because at the end of the day, we have that entire length all the way to the tail pipe to mitigate the noise that's inside the cabin.

So it's really a balancing act trying to get this on a appealing noise. And that's been the, like, kind of a crazy thing as you've thrown around a lot as we've walked around. It's it's hurts. It's all about what the sounds on a, you know, that's a measurable scale. Even kind of getting into you guys have the, that really cool mufflers of your, X mod series.

They're super tunable. We've said it 50 times when I've been here. A exhaust is not just an exhaust, and there's so much more that goes into it.

Yeah. The X mod product line, that you saw is our X mod universal muffler. And we just tried to take what our engineers do and fine tune on all of our application specific components, which could be several $1,000 of finished bolt on products. And we wanted to make that available to everybody because as we're finding out, it doesn't matter. We got guys that are coming back on vehicles.

They've had exhaust systems 2 or 3 times on, especially what I'm finding is some of the classics out there. You know, we've got professional builders. A good example is we just had Jimmy Shine here not too long ago come back and talk about some of his older feature cars where the owners, they've had the cars for some time, they've been featured, they've made magazines, they've won awards, but they don't drive them as much anymore because the old loud muffler they placed in them 20 years ago just isn't sufficing for making a comfortable experience. And today, we're getting those cars back, we're talking to the owners, and it's not that they minded that it was loud. It was the drone that caused them the rattling eardrum and the discomfort it had to not enjoy the vehicle.

So we wanted to come up with a universal option that let our professional builders, as well as the end consumers, be able to play with the the sound in a way that they can have the effect that they want. And we tried to narrow the band, as you saw. We put, like, 3 different options in the box that you get and it covers the most variety of what we see the drone frequencies are. But like a trombone, you can adjust the length yourself, cut it to fit, and tune in that muffler so you can get that great MagnaFlow sound but also eliminate the drone that happens through a straight through performance exhaust.

Yeah. And that's kind of one thing walking around this place and seeing all the different MagnaFlow product lines. You guys have something for everybody from, you know, your direct fit line, which is like OEM replacement stuff, into some really high end fancy exhaust. And then some in the middle, like, non fabricator. I don't wanna make my own system, with your defit line.

You know, that was cool to see those. And the just again, the engineering that goes into this stuff, like looking at the the X mod exhaust that's on the Mustang, the exhaust hangers are, like, double sheared. Like, who would have thought it? Like, I never in a 1000000 years would I thought I'd seen that.

I don't know how many times we've done the data search, but, you know, we find that the performance car enthusiasts, the guy buying the Mustang, the Camaro, the Corvette, the Challenger Charger, they're probably in the market for doing an exhaust a couple times during that car's lifetime because they may have their first impressions of the vehicle, I just want this monster and a beast. Right? I want this thing to be loud. I want it to have a lot of presence. And then they may reconsider, okay, they got their first red and blue flashy lights behind them.

They gotta take it on their first road trip and they're like, yeah, I need to dial this back a bit. And, it it's not so much that there's a price shock that they're willing to not willing to experience because they're an early adopter, they want the best they can for their car. So what we've done is we've looked at X mod as an option for that person that might have a dual personality. We wanna give them the best part we can for both options, but we don't wanna sacrifice. So we put both parts in the box and we have our exchangeable modules, hence the X mod name.

So we have a straight pipe option. So if you wanna go and press the buddies or go down to the race track and shave, you know, £20 off your car, you have that option. But then, if that that sound level is not appropriate for you driving around town, then you can go back in, v band clamps, couple of, minutes with a 11 millimeter wrench, and you're back in business with something that's more usable around the street.

The switch out was, I mean, it was right now. Like, you could do this in your driveway. No problem.

And that's a big thing. I know the v band clamps are a bit of an expense that we put into it, but the one thing is is that if you're truly gonna be taking something on and off, there's no other way that you can interface the 2 and not have it wear out. If you're talking about a flange, that means there's a gasket. If you're talking about a slip fit where compressing something, eventually it's gonna start to distort the material. The v band truly gives you a quick disconnect that gives you reliable and a complete gasket seal every time without additional parts or wear and tear.

Yeah. And one of the cool parts I liked about that system is that there was even a couple extra v bands in the box.

You know, we put in the instructions that, you should be using a torque device and, we shouldn't be hitting these things with an impact gun. And we know the reality is, you know, we're out there trying to do stuff quickly and you get that electric impact and sometimes you don't realize that thing's capable of well over a 100 foot pounds of torque. You'll strip the threads, go all the threads and rather than leave you stranded, we realize that, you know, if you're really doing what we intended to do with the vehicle, which is make it so that you can change it all the time, we're gonna give you some spare parts in the box for the investment that you've made.

So, Rich, tubing diameter and length, is that still a big topic with people? That's another one of those misconceptions that we talked about when it comes to exhaust, bigger, not always better. So, what what do you say to people when they come to you with those questions around the the tubing size?

Well, I think, with more modern vehicles, I mean, there's a better example. So when you take a look at, like, what's underneath that, you know, 480 horsepower Mustang that we had out there, it's a factory dual 2a half. And for the longest time, I mean, go back to my high school days and we had, buddies with our 225 horse, you know, 302 v eights and, oh man, I'm running a dual 3 inch. Gotta have dual 3 inch. Gotta have it.

You know, and, the, I think the, the, awareness level of what that actually was and meant is as much better now, because it's also reflected by the OEMs. The selection of exhaust and the design of exhaust by the OEMs is much more, it's it's it actually it's thought into the process of the design of the car and not so much an afterthought. And if you're in the performance industry and you've watched what's happened to the pony cars from the late nineties till now, I mean, how many times did we see crushed pipes because they just couldn't make it fit on one side? I'm a big f body fan and grew up with that in the world. And, you know, your y pipes on one side are smashed to about an inch and a half tall, just so they could have the ground clearance where behind the cat to the y, and then the other side's a a standard 2 and a quarter inch pipe.

That's not efficient, but it was good enough. And I think that's, that mentality's definitely gone away. You can look at the new Mustang. It even has an oval pipe in the new Mustang as well, but only absolutely where it needs it And you can tell they've put much more design consideration into creating an exhaust system that fits the car, not something that was just an afterthought. So, inside of that conversation of, like, what pipe diameter is there, I think people understand now, better than ever that you can't just go big in tubing size.

And to really exasperate that, it's the the idea behind it is that a large tube will actually flow exhaust gases less efficiently. And I think that message is getting out there, but we just have to reinforce it with good data. And I think that's the part that, you know, doing the flow bench testing and understanding how much CFM airflow we need is important to, getting that information out. So, yes, at the shows, we get that question a lot. But people are quite surprised when we say, you can support a 500 horsepower car with a dual 2a half.

People used to scratch their head. Today, they're more accepting of it. But, you know, we've also got, a different, crowd of people being, they're exposed to up to, again, 1,000 horsepower cars are dealer lot purchasable and they're running dual 3 inch exhaust or 33 and a quarter inch exhaust. So, it's definitely something that's more common knowledge.

Think about a, you know, a late seventies Corvette. That 350, that thing makes a whopping a 100 and 25 horsepower.

I mean, today's race cars, it's, you know, you you put, a supercharger on a v eight. You put a twin turbo on a v eight. Plus 1200 horsepower is not out of the question on stock bottom ends. It's pretty wild. And within that context too, we're not having to go out and put, you know, if we stuck by the old adages that we were, you know, raised on in the eighties nineties, we'd have dual 5 inch exhaust out here.

Right? But that's not the case. I mean, we even see the diesel world, you know, a 5 inch exhaust is like at the extreme of what these guys that are producing over a 1000 horsepower, over 2,000 foot pounds of torque are using on a single pipe. So, again, I think the consumers are more aware, but there's still a process of, at least educating them on why and having that data that we do produce on the flow bench, and at least a chart that they can understand, some approximations, I think is very important.

Any other questions out there that you get commonly? Or, yeah, we could, you know, kinda throw out in front of people here and answer for them?

I think in the exhaust world, I think the next most common question that we deal with is, like, how to manipulate the sound. And that's something more recently, obviously, with the introduction of our NDT technology and really the price point that exhaust has elevated to. I mean, no foreign, person here to the idea that exhaust is much more expensive than it used to be, but there's a lot more to it. And with that, we're trying to build the value by adjusting not only the the volume but the tonality and that's something we really focused on as you saw saw with the the the 24 Mustang. We went with a chambered muffler and an h pipe, all in the nature of trying to make that vehicle sound a certain way.

It wasn't just about, you know, it's gonna sound like it does with the parts we have and the way we've used it we used to do it. So I think that's something that, we get a lot of questions on too, is like, can I make my blank sound deeper, raspier? And, that unfortunately is a qualified question for someone who's done the work. There really isn't, and I I'll take that back a little bit. There are some guidelines that can help you travel down those paths to get a sound of a certain type, but, realistically, it's it's an accumulation of experience and knowledge and knowing that, hey, I've put enough of these on straight sixes that make about 300 horsepower.

I've put these on 90 degree v eights that, you know, are over this displacement, have this cam profile to create a certain sound. But I think the biggest expectation, and this is typically from the newer people entering the market, is it's very difficult to make something that isn't something sound like something else. And I'll I'll fill in those blanks. If I have a 4 cylinder with a turbocharger, it's not gonna sound like a 4 cylinder without a turbocharger. If I've got something that without a turbocharger that I want to sound like a twin turbo 6, it's not going to.

There's just no way to manipulate the airflow characteristics, what happens to a turbo to a non turbo car. It's easier in a supercharged application because we're pushing the air in before the combustion process, not chopping up the, the pressure waves afterwards. But ultimately, displacement, compression, and those primary functions of how the cylinders are firing an opposed 4 cylinder, that boxer motor, doesn't matter if it's a Subaru or a Porsche, has a a distinct sound and there's not anything that you can do to get away from it. You can cancel some of the high frequency to make it sound deeper. You can cancel some of the low frequency to sound it make it sound more mid range.

But it's kind of like asking a tuba to sound like a flute. They're both wind instruments, but the size of the tubing and the the the air pressure waves that it creates based upon that size of tubing is gonna have character. And we're gonna be able to manipulate and adjust around it, but we can't create something from nothing. If that sound isn't being created by the motor, we can't create it from nothing, minus putting a speaker in the exhaust.

Yeah. I mean, I I come from the motorcycle world, and I that's very similar on that end, whereas I'm a big in line 4 guy. And if you go to a V Twin, that's a completely different sound.

And we get a lot of that, you know. And and again, it's the same thing. It's like, you know, fans of motor sports that come in there that don't build cars are now excited. Thank you for everybody that's entering the market. We love you guys.

You know, I I have a 4 cylinder but I want it to sound like the car I saw, at Formula D this weekend or you know what, I've got a V eight but it's a classic and I want it to sound like that, you know, closer to that top fuel car. How do you get to those areas? And I think that's that realistic assertion of there are only certain things you can do minus making the actual physical modification to emulate that device, whatever the motor is.

You're doing exhaust systems, mufflers, converters. What's, you know, what are you guys working on, now? Obviously, we talked about the 24 Mustang, but we talked about the DFIT, and we had the competition series and the X MOD. So maybe just kinda take us through some of the the products that you'd like to highlight.

It's been a pretty interesting couple of years as, we've redefined the product lines based upon what people are using them for. And you'll see that through the X mod lineup. Rather than in the past where we've typically had things such as our street competition race, for the most part, that was just a volume assessment. You know, our street product people realized was dual purpose and more on the mellow side. Our competition was a little bit more aggressive, made for that person that might be a weekend warrior but still driving on the street.

And race, I think, is self explanatory. That's that person who wants the all out high performance sound all the time. With that being said, that wasn't necessarily the only way people use their cars based upon volume. So we started looking into the criteria and we started examining things such as, like in the off road community. We got involved with, more of this overland trend and with that, we looked at, well, we used to have what's called a rock crawler and it's pretty self explanatory.

The rock crawler system was made for high clearance and had a tail pipe that was tucked away, but it still had a very performance tone to it. The Overland community is a little bit different and as we started to talk about what they did, yes, they rock crawled, yes, they off roaded, but these were people that were more conscious about their environment around them and this is something they go camping, you know, they do hiking and other things. And they didn't wanna disturb, the area around them or other campers, but they still wanted the performance aspect. So we kinda took some of the things from the Rockcrawler system, which was high clearance, high performance. We incorporated them into what looks like our current X mod universal muffler.

We gave them NDT so that we can control that interior drone, so when they're on their way to their travels or on highway, a lot of that, mileage and they're carrying very heavy loads, we were able to basically mitigate some of that drone and still give them the off road performance that's, you know, the straight through design that they want, but also the clearance that the rock crawler gave. So, rather than simply calling them by the output levels, we qualified it by a particular lifestyle. So, our Overland series is kind of a hybrid of what our NDT technology on the street vehicles wanted as well as what we did on the off road community for better clearance and performance. So, that's a good example of something that we've been looking at as sort of a different approach and that really kinda fell into what X mod was as well because it wasn't just about, you know, X mod is neither street nor race. It's actually kinda both.

And that hybridization is what allowed us to create a product line that satisfies both communities and is adjustable. And that that's sort of what we wanted to do as we move forward and, we have our other product line known as Neo and as the name implies, it's sort of a new approach. This is something that kind of again, hybrided a couple different ideas. We wanted something that had dual purpose street but we never wanted to sacrifice the drone. We don't mind that it doesn't have a muffler in line, it may only have an NDT resonator, so it is gonna be racy loud, but at no point will it actually create the drone that's unwanted.

So we found that that's kind of what our high performance compact car or high performance street car that doesn't see the track wants. And that's sort of our new approach is the guy that doesn't go to the track, but wants that track like performance all the time.

Yep. You're gonna have customers of all different needs and desires and that's why I kinda like, you know, the defit line, you'd mentioned it's it's it's a little bit lower price point or quite a bit lower price point, actually. And, you know, it don't have to have a lot of particular skill level to to actually install it. So it's nice that you kinda have that as part of the mix too.

Being aware of what the technical aptitude is of the customers and how that's changing and also the environment. I grew up at a time where muffler shop was just as common as finding your diagnostic shop to do repairs. That's not so much the case anymore, and a lot of it's changed because it isn't just welding mild steel. Almost everything you have from factory these days is some variant of stainless, and stainless isn't the same to weld on, and there's also all of these other things to consider with catalytic converters, sensors, whether you're talking about DPF for diesel, you're talking about, regular catalytic converters for the gas cars. Having an understanding of that means that the muffler shops need to have a different level of aptitude, and with that, there's fewer of them out there.

So, we wanted to make sure that we could, give a product to the consumer that gave them the, desirable effect of an after market muffler without all the negatives that come along with having to be a professional to understand how to do it, how to install it, and also make it somewhat reversible. And that's, that defit line, we we wanted to place right between what it would take for buying a universal muffler and paying the labor to something now you could do yourself or take to a shop that isn't a, exhaust specialist and have it installed at a reasonable price. And, for the most part, you know, we we have 2 options. We have our defit with muffler and we have our defit without, which is really just a straight pipe kit that allows you to go for that racier tone. But because it only replaces the section of the exhaust where the muffler resides, means that you're only replacing the minimum parts necessary to achieve the sound.

And really, you're still getting the performance because in most cases where the factory muffler is, there's a reduction of the tubing diameter. Our defit series will remain the same both inlet and outlet. So we will get that Magnaflow tone and you will get that additional benefit of a straight through exhaust.

Rich, you've been so grace, gracious with your time. I do wanna give you the last word on here. Any parting wisdom or parting words for the audience here?

The biggest thing I say is, you know what? Our cars are extensions of our personalities, and I know there's so much more going on inside of them today, but there is a great knowledge base of people out there that can help you make the decisions. Having great sources such as Summit out there to help make those, selections easier, working with your team specifically on getting the knowledge out there, and talking to the manufacturers to figure out what the product is that's right for you is probably the best thing that you can do. You know, I I hate to say that the technology of cars has gotten so good that people just won't change them. There's always room for improvement.

I don't care what what generation of vehicle we've been in. You know, go back to the days of the early sixties and people are like, well, I got my Copo, you know, I've got my all aluminum block 7 liter motor. There's nothing better than this. Well, yeah, there is. And, there's always gonna be something that's an option.

And if nothing else, if it's just because you wanna go out and personalize your car, go out and do it. Enjoy your car, you know, that's that's something that I grew up with and I knew I created an entire lifestyle around and, it's something that I have a lot of, take a lot of fun and pleasure in and at the same time now, being able to kinda give back and talk to those people that wanna enter that community, it's a great community to be in. I think the car automotive enthusiast world is probably one of the best ones to be a part of.

Well, again, we appreciate the time and and the knowledge, Rich. And, that's gonna do it for this episode of the On All Cylinders podcast for Derek and Justin. I'm Dave, and we'll talk to you guys later.

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Exhaust System Tech, Myths and Much More...with Magnaflow's Rich Waitas

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