yoeddynz

@Chris.QCR you'll just have to come back sometime. I was waiting for a text from ya when you got back to camp and was going to hoon over to Kaiteri but guessed you were knackered and just wanted to eat @Roman and it only took me 36 attempts...

"this is what we want to hear folks"

Thanks fellas. Yeah its definitely got more of a big engine sound especially when loaded up. I'll have to setup the Gopro off the back of the car and get some exhaust vids. I'd like to know what it sounds l like out the back when burbling through town sort of pace. If I can sort out the fumes with new pipe exits it'll be grand.

Christ, would you look at the time. Its about time I build another exhaust box. Here comes version 3.0 First I brought version 1.3 in from the garage. This box took me ages to make. Quite involved. By the time I'd got to 1.3 it was pretty good for sound but too fumy with the centre exit exhaust and not flat sixy enough. I took the lid off and looked inside. Then this happened. No going back now. I welded in some stainless to cover the hole created when removing the centre exits. It was now a simple box again and ready for filling. These arrived in the post all the way from China. I'm constantly impressed with the quality of these. I got eight of them landed for not much more than the price of one at 'trade' from my stainless supplier. Before playing with elbows I machined up some more flanges for the new tailpipes. These were later welded onto the outlet stubs at each end. I welded two pairs of elbows together, cut the outside of the curves off and then fired up the yellowhammer workshop Ryobi precision material removal machine centre.. I was so impressed with the quality of finish this machine creates even after checking on the surface table.. Wow. Amazing. I'd made sure to check all other possible measurements.. I then welded the halves together. I was very happy with how the welding was going.. But got a bit slack and a hole appeared. Whoops. You can spot my exceptional filling job here.. So this X pipe was connected up to some leftover spiral punch silencer tube and some of the perforated tube I made, pinched from box 1.3. Its a very simple layout .. The glass fibre silencer packing pulled from box 1.3 was still in excellent condition... A game of 'Itchy Jigsaw' was played with the pieces until the box was full. Sealed and bolted down the lid.. I deliberated for a fairly short amount of time on what form the tail pipes would take. Ended up with an elbow on each end and gave the pipe surfaces an 'easy care' wire brushed finish. Before the big exciting start up this morning a nice coffee was had. Then we took some vids.. Much better!!! In fact I'm really happy with this one. Its got a lovely flat six burble at idle, which could be improved if I lower the idle rpm - currently sits at about 800-825. Its smooth and quite subtle. Could be louder with a bit less packing crammed in. At cruise its nice and burbly, although again, it could be louder. However I've only heard it from inside at cruise so far. There is absolutely no droning at any point Once its opened up its lovely. Has a nice wail. Its so fun to drive fast with the revs up. Very smooth. Only issue is the fumes. Exhaust gases from rear facing exits are still getting sucked into the low pressure zone behind the car and drawn into the cabin when our windows are down. So my next modification (Version 3.1) will be new exits angled off at 45 degrees - sort of like this.. I still love the look of the twin centre exit exhaust on version 1.3 but I think the exits separated like it is now helps accentuate the flat six sound. The actual box design and general look could be improved further, possibly with a neat perforated heat shield ? But yeah. Very happy with this setup. It might be a keeper.

They look like 22" wheels on that? But then again my sight isn't what it used to be..

Wow. What a roller coaster ride of scope creep. Most of us have been there. It's looking pretty spiffy in there

I don't think I've ever seen theirs. Any vids of it out there we can see. Great sounding engines with the right exhaust these

It's got a removable secondary burner plate in the ceiling - more for helping to keep the glass clear. Pretty basic stuff though.

My latest wood burner build. 5mm thick steel. Hefty as. It's got a triangular shaped plan. Rack on top is to hold rocks. It's going into a posh sauna and will be surrounded by sweaty Germans

Fantastic update. Very interesting for this fellow exhaust porn seeker.

I like the printing video. Did you set the printer to park the head at the back every few minutes, timed with the camera taking a photo?

It should only take you about 4 attempts at the muffler and you be sorted by my experience I've always loved the sound of this little mazda v6 - I can ask the owner, Andrew, who @kws also knows and could possibly get more details. Go to 3min..

But yes. A lovely combo. The fella is a super nice chap and really chuffed with Minky. Gone to a good home which made it much easier for Hannah and I because we were quite attached to the little hatch. I'll miss not having a k11 but the Z11 is so much more practical for us even on the same size foot print and is interesting, quirky, fun to drive and cheap to run. K11s still run rings around it for handling and prowess on twisty roads though.

Minky

Oh and while I'm here.. an update on our K11 life which is now Z11 life. Minky was sold to a friend of @Shakotom up in Auckland. We met him at Nelson airport and he drove minky back, the boot fillled to the brim with k11 spares. The PFL guards, bonnet, bootlid, front spoiler and grill etc we later dropped off at my mums and the new owners grandad picked it up on their way back up north. He's sent me some pics of Minkys new home. Very happy with it. First job he did was whack the lowering springs back in place and I think he's bought some new wheels for her. Pic of Minky at his grandads place next to some ford things..

I don't think we had to change anything because whilst we were upsizing the engine to a pfl 1.3 the electrics that ran the new engine were all still facelift spec. So essentially the later facelift hitachi dizzy never really left the engine bay. I think the only thing I had to change was a an alternator plug because we kept the alternator that was on the 1.3 iirc.

Lol @ the chooks running away scared

Plenty of plans yet! :)

Oh man that would be good to hear.

Good heads up on grinders - especially for the folks on here with face rugs..

Yeah I can see that being the case. Its all extra resistance eh. I still have to keep reminding myself that I'll never ever get that big low grunty porsche sound from a tiny 1500 cc six cylinder engine. Even an old 2.2 porsche is going have more exhaust energy to utilise, let alone the big 3.6/4.0s. But if I can have more burble and character when just idling and cruising I'll be happy.

Thanks for the suggestions fellas. I'm constantly learning and this process is fun. Standard Goldwings run the header outputs directly into an expansion chamber and then out to the each side and the mufflers. Its very simple. You can see the box here in the centre.. and how its placed in this pic.. They actually sound pretty cool with the mufflers removed leaving only that box.(one of my fav bike fellas to watch).. https://youtube.com/shorts/-J2i6ZN7Pdk?si=Qf46nFySPSm4cwaF There's quite a few companies making X pipes/cross over pipes that replace the stock chamber. They claim all sorts of things (as usual) but mainly they are louder. My next idea is to try a bit of crossover and make a system sort of similar to like many aftermarket Porsche ones are like and have twin side exits. They usually have muffler units before this lot although some are totally muffler delete which must be ear bleedingly loud. and.. but probably not this one.. But with mufflers where I can. I have some ideas. Will order some bends from Ali. In theory it should be much quicker and easier to build.

A bit like the unequal tracts on a earlier scooby to create the off beat rumble ? But in the case of almost all Porsches and all Goldwings they have very equal systems yet still create the sound I want. I am getting closer each time though and what Ben has to say below is similar to what I'm planning next...

I've now clocked up 3200km since fitting the flat six. 1200 of those are from the weekend just past but I'll get to that in a later. First off - more exhaust box modifications. Adding that sound deadening mat around the pipe had made it too quiet and the exhaust note had lost some of its character. So I cut the box open again and removed the stuffing. This time I riveted a lid in place in case change my mind..again.. I also cut a hole in the bottom of the box and made a bolt in panel that has a folded over, wedge shaped partition splitting the main lower chamber in two. The idea is to stop the exhaust pulses from each side hitting each other and creating that hum. I don't really think it will work as such because they are pressure induced sound waves and the partition isn't a perfect seal. But it does help guide the exhaust flow up through the plate of many holes above. I didn't take pics so you'll have to picture it. So the box is sort of back to what it was like when first made but in theory better flowing. It sounds nice enough though, not droney at all, no fumes and sporty when extended. It'll have to do until I start exhaust box number 3. With that bit of exhaust fettling finished I double checked my tool box for anything extra we might need, packed the car up and cut some thick foam up to make a cradle for the UE Boom bluetooth speaker so it doesn't slide about on the parcel shelf. We headed to my mums place in Blenheim, Hannah driving convoy in the van which was filled with the last of our K11 micra bits that were getting picked up from mums by the new k11 owner the following week. She had Kevin the cat for company as mum would be baby sitting him. Pic from a stop at Pelorus bridge on the way over.. Kevin.. The drive over was great fun. I was lucky enough to almost get a clear run up the Whangamoa hill climb until I caught up to a Suzuki swift sport that was not living up to its name. For those that don't know the Whangamoa hills its a decent climb out of Nelson that's got loads of great corners where you can see well ahead. The whole road up to the saddle was resurfaced a few years ago and its a sporty drivers delight. The following day we headed south to Christchurch. Hannah had a weekend long fire fighters conference to go to. I would be free to catch up with family and friends down there. Lovely drive south with perfect weather. We've not been down the east coast for a few years and this was the first time in a very very long time we'd driven anything interesting on this road. Pics.. View from cafe stop.. Had a very nice posh hotel to stay at in Chch. Car was now plastered in fly road kill.. The next couple of days I hooned about chch city, caught up with friends. First thing Sat morning I popped in to mag and turbo and got my front wheels rebalanced as I could feel they were out slightly on smoother roads. Big thanks to @CUL8R for sorting me out there, getting the right fella (a mini loving barry) on the job. Was nice to catch up for a good old chat. The cars front end was much improved. Sunday was especially good as I managed to get some really good driving in on the Port hills and Lyttleton habour area. Good coffee, great roads, clear sunny day. I have not driven a lot of these hill roads for years and the last time at speed was in the 90s in my supercharged Mr2, brothers TVR or a bit more recently a mates WRX he lent us for a week. Great roads and luckily actually really quiet on the Sunday morning. I discovered whilst hooning through the Lyttleton tunnel that if I hit the red line in second then button right off so fuel cut activates the car does a wicked backfire. Second time back through the tunnel was hampered by someone who insisted on sitting at 40kph. Late morning whilst parked up looking at the maps on my phone six Triumph TR6 sports cars raced by. I dropped my phone and took off after them. For the next hour the convoy raced about making the most of really good hillclimbs and twisty roads. Damn it was fun. What glorious sounds! The Imp was in its element and by now I was really getting the hang of making the most of the rear engine configuration. I was bloody loving it. I just kept following them until we ended up out over in Charteris bay and they pulled into a cafe car park. They all came over to check out the Imp, wondering how I managed to keep up Lovely cars TR6's - my brother almost bought one that we'd test driven before getting his TVR. The Triumph 6 connection for me is having owned 5 TC2500s over the years. Turns out I had met one of them a coouple of years previously when they were doing a nationals meet up our way. I was invited in for lunch with them and had some good banter. Late Sunday afternoon after Hannahs conference was over we drove to Hanmer springs. Another nice Hotel and this time the Imp had company more its age.. That evening we spent several hours in the thermal springs right over the road from the hotel. Cool clear night. Tickets now include the water slides so we made the most of those too. On Monday morning we left Hanmer.. and headed back to Blenheim via Waiau.. and the inland Kaikoura road. It used to be gravel for quite a big section and I've not driven it since it's been sealed. Looking forward to the twisties but it was quite a let down. Actually very rough, lumpy and bumpy. It was not really suited to a lowered imp. Would be far more fun in a peppy Citreon or something with really supple suspension. In fact I had more fun when it was gravel. Kaikoura for lunch.. Back to Blenheim for the evening. Got to play with mums border collie puppy .. Following day it was back home. This time I was even more lucky on the Whangamoas because there was a traffic stop due to tree felling. I was at the head of the line just behind a large truck. Passed him after the lights went green and had the whole hill to myself. Fantastic. Gentle 4 wheel slides balancing that rear weight overhang on the smooth tarmac. So fun. Once home I did a final check over of the car. Needed a tiny bit of oil, 200mls, due to a small drip from the sump I have now fixed. We clocked up 1280 kms (having accounted for 3% speedo error) and across all that driving averaged 6.6L/100km or 42 MPG in old money. Of the fill ups the best was 5.9L/100km when just cruising with the traffic down the east coast, worst was 7.4 after a lot of fast driving. I'm bloody amazed. We kept re-checking the figures etc and its legit. Its just so cool that such a smooth, nippy little six can also be so thrifty. The Imp is also really comfortable (the Recaros help) on long trips too. Its the only car I have owned to date where I don't get a sore right ankle from the throttle on long runs. So I'm pretty bloody rapt with the outcome and look forwards to more road trips. Also looking forwards to cracking on some more modifications I have planned.

Just a thought which may or may not work (and could end up looking ugly..) but can you fit tiny nylon balance tubes between each bank?