legacycentral bbs

right on.he did say the biggest thing to improve performance on a turbo is to increase air intake.he said intake is much more important on turbo's then exhaust.more opinions welcome i'm kinda in the middle right now and don't know what to do.the mandrel bent sounds great but i cant find anyone that actually can do it custom unless i go with the pieces and have it welded together[which may still be an option]but a regular exhaust would sure be easier.what about a 3" regular bent ?

Buying the bends and having them welded together makes perfect sense. It's very hard to find a shop that does mandrel bends themselves; even most shops that advertise mandrel-bent exhausts buy the bends and weld them together. Like I explained, they're very easy to put together this way and it makes sense to have someone whose sole job is to make mandrel U-bends for everyone else. I don't actually know anyone personally who had a shop do a custom mandrel bent exhaust in-house.

Mike Sheilds from SPD tuning is of the opinion that either 2.5 or 2.75" exhaust is the way to go on a subaru turbo...(I can't remember which, 2.5 or 2.75) and that with 3 inch one lost low end, with no actual gain in top end. But that is just one opinion I have heard, I can't figure out which to do either.
Thanks
Micum

You're right... Mike Shields does recommend 2.5" mandrel-bent exhaust on the WRX. He says that the turbo won't spool up fast enough with 3" pipe and that 2.5" pipe flows about as well as 3" anyway.

The EJ20T flows a little less air than the EJ22T, so you might want to modify his advice, but not by much...

I remember people being surprised before by his recommendation that EJ25s not use exhaust tubing larger than 2.25", too. But Mike knows his stuff.

Motorcycle shops and Truck shops usually have mandrel benders and most of the work they do is custom. And the truck guys have machines that can handle something ridiculous like 5" pipe so that isn't a problem.

well I won a 3" mandrel bent turbo back system at the rally this weekend.please check my post in the exhaust forum as I want to know what people think.should I go ahead and put it on?thanks