Pfadt Racing

As many of you have heard we are in the midst of releasing our very own Tri-Y 4-2-1 header! We've been working on this for many months now and thought it would be fun to give folks a behind the scenes view of what's involved in bringing a fully fledged part to market.

We are going to keep the posts short and sweet, but break it up into 5 components:

• Initial Analysis and Dyno Verification
• CAD and Packaging
• Jig Design
• Part Production
• Mid pipe spotlight!

Part 1: Initial Analysis and Dyno Verification

As you would expect, the beginning of a great header begins with a lot of hard work! We began our journey with a lot of number crunching. There are two main ways that a properly designed set of headers will make more power:

Removing restrictions - By reducing pumping losses you can increase the overall velocity of the exhaust gas coming out of the cylinders and make more power! We settled on a final tube diameter of 1.75 primaries and huge 2" secondaries which flow into one final 3" collector. This gradual step up in tube diameter ensures you will have great flow up to power levels of 850+whp. The Tri-Y design is a whole-different animal than a traditional 4-into-1. The unique aspect being that the combination of 1.75"/2" tubes supports horsepower levels at and above the range of a standard 1.875" 4-into-1 design.

Pressure Pulse Tuning - Each time a volume of exhaust gas flows out of the head and into a collector, whether it be a Tri-Y or a 4-1 header design, when it comes in contact with the collector there is a negative pressure pulse sent back up the tube and back into the head at the speed of sound. This negative pressure pulse when tuned correctly can help improve scavenging by sucking fresh air into the cylinder. To take full advantage of this effect the lengths of the tubes must be designed to the proper length. One of the big reasons why a Tri-Y setup offers superior low end performance is because the 3 collectors in a Tri-Y let us optimize scavenging at both high and low RPM, rather than just one RPM range like in a typical 4-1 header.

After crunching the numbers we knew how long we wanted our primary tube lengths (the length of tube from the head to the first collector) and our secondary lengths (length of tube from first 2 collectors to the final collector) to be in a perfect world. But what about the real world? This is where our Dyno Testing comes into play!

Our original test headers were a custom set with adjustable primary and secondary tube lengths. We also had interchangeable cone designs for the 3rd and final collector to help us further optimize the design. After many different configurations, and well over 150 runs to this point on an engine Dyno we finally came to the final tube lengths, cone shapes and merge angles!

Notice right after the flange we have a Pitot Tube and pressure transducer setup to measure the exhaust pulses as they exit the cylinder and come back as negative pressure pulses. This hardware was very valuable in setting the final lengths!

With our final design in place that we know makes great power we move onto packaging this design into the Corvette in such a way that it requires minimal work during install. Needless to say this isn't an easy task either! Stay tuned over the next few days for more details on the rest of the development process of our Pfadt Race Engineering Tri-Y header production!







Pitot Tube and Pressure Transducer setup

glenB

Your pressure transducers look like GM MAP sensors

Eagerly waiting for the next installment

peter pan

Like the development and work you all do for our Vettes and other sports vehicles

Pfadt Racing

Part 2 is now up and available!

LTC Z06

Figured this market was full, good on you pushing the envelope.

Pfadt Racing

Stage 3 is up!

Pfadt Racing

All parts are now up! If you've missed any installments you can get updated from any of our threads, so be sure to catch up if you've missed anything!

Mookster

I see no dyno graphs?

matt_lowry123

How much power do they make?

Pfadt Racing

Hey everyone! Just wanted to give you guys an update on this. Our pricing has been released and is live right now on some of dealer's websites! Basically, the breakdown is as follows for our dealer's pricing, all kits include MLS gaskets and all 02 sensor extenders:

C6Z w/ Cats: $1890
C6Z w/o Cats: $1650
Late LS3 w/ Cats: $1890
Late LS3 w/o Cats: $1650

If anyone is looking at getting a set in their hands, just let me know and I will direct you to dealers of ours that will have these available as early as next week!

Check out our new product page for these headers, disregard the price, that was only done because they are not "officially" for sale from Pfadt yet, only dealers.

http://www.pfadtracing.com/catalog/p...roducts_id/279

You will find that dyno graphs for LS3, LS7 and LS9 are up on the website! Check 'em out!