hmm...that is kind of interesting..but...

my whole arguement is that, unless you have a very high flow muffler, and headers, no cat, no resonators, you have so much turbulance and restriction elsewhere that the expensive mandrel bends dont do any good. i mean, i can see where every little bit helps, but i cant see with my 3-cat system on the RT, how mandrel bending could make my car produce more hp. am i right in this assumption?

 

Yeah. But the whole point upgrading to headers, HF cats and muffler is to make power gains. If you're going to do it right and get the most you can from the mods., you need to use mandrel. Even a stock car can gain something by switching the pipes to mandrel bent over compression bent.

It's not the only way, just the best way.

 

how does mandrel bend compare to cutting and piecing angled cuts?

 

I'm not sure what you're asking.[sm=dontgetit.gif]

 

so when you dont mandrel bend, it crimps the pipe..which causes disturbance in flow. but the exhaust on the mirada isnt actually bent. where they needed a bend, he angle cut the pipe, and angle cut another pipe to make the angle he needed...i think in two places...so it isa true size the whole way through...but i have sharp interior angles...

 

I thought you said it was a compression bent tubing you used. You're confusing me.[sm=smiley29.gif]

 

no no...the RT is compression bent...

the mirada is...well, i dont know how to explain it clearly...if you take 2 pieces of pipe, and cut them at 45 degree angles..and put them together..it makes a 90 degree...i dont know if that makes any sense...

 

Your angle cut and welded exhaust is in between the compression bent and the mandrel for the most part. It all depends on how the angled and welded exhaust is done, if you make a 90 degree angle with only the one cut where it is a perfect L shape then it will actually be such a harsh transition that it would be far inferior to the other types of bends. Your angle cut does keep the size up which makes it better than the compression bent, but then the smooth bends of the mandrel bent pipe are superior to your angle cut due to less turbulences from the harsh transitions from one direction to the other. In your particular case with only 30 degree bends/angles there would be little to no difference between the two. Now if you had a full exhaust that went over the axles, you would have a very noticeable difference between the two on both a dyno and in the real world at the track.

Every little bit counts and no matter how many converters you have a mandrel bent exhaust will improve flow thus increasing power. The more and harsher the bends the more the gains will be from a mandrel bent system. A good number of the newer cars being made already come with mandrel bent exhausts, both of my Shelby Z's, my R/T and my SRT-4 came stock with a mandrel bent exhaust.

 

well, the 2 45's to make a 90 was an example...i dont actually have any angles that sharp, but i know what you mean. as for the mandrel bent exhaust on the sRT4 and whatnot, dont pretty much all cars come from the factory with mandrel bends? im about 99% sure that my RT did, but of all of the exhaust/performance shops in this area, i dont know of any that advertise mandrel bending.

 

Yes, most, but not all, of the newer cars are mandrel bent. If you go back a few years the only cars with mandrel bent exhausts were high performance models, like my Shelby Z's. Most exhaust shops don't have a mandrel bender, but places that make roll cages do. I found this out a few years back when I was calling around to find a place that could and the only place that did was a place that custom makes roll cages. The only problem I had with that place was that they couldn't bend the larger 2.5" that I was wanting, they did bend up to just below that size though.