This device kept the peace in my neighborhood...

As I mentioned in my last post, I am going to take a break about fixing the issues caused by WORX Auto Alarm and instead, talk about a mod I made right after I got the car back.

As long time readers know, my car served as the rig for the Tomei Expreme Ti titanium exhaust.  One nice thing about offering my car was, I became one of the first (if not the first period) to have the commercial product installed on my car.

The exhaust is a masterpiece. And, if I owned my car out in the countryside with the closest neighbor a good kilometer or so away, it would cause no problems.

Unfortunately I live in a Yokohama suburb where I have neighbors to my left, right and across the (Japanese sized narrow) street. This means that every time I start up my GT-R, people notice. It also means that, if the Tomei is unbaffled, the noise is loud enough to wake the neighbors in the early morning or at night.

Clearly, I needed a solution, fast.  Initially, I simply used the bung that came with the Tomei. That, along with the Blitz E-ESC electronic exhaust valve, worked for awhile, until that eventful trip to WORX where somehow that bung came loose and was lost somewhere in Chiba.

So when I got the car back, I managed to park the car with the Blitz valve fully closed, but herein lies the problem. First, the valve is designed to close only when the engine is warmed up. That means that normally, starting from cold results in huge noise (ok, music :).  Second, I have to remember to manually close the valve to override the initial programming, which is probably not good for the engine.  In other words, a bung should be used, with the Blitz valve being a back up when ultra-silent running is needed.  While I could simply re-order the Tomei bung, I recalled a conversation with the guys at Nissan Prince Tokyo Motorsports about a superior product that was available from a third party.

A bit of research and I found this guy. Mr. Suganuma and his company, "SFC" (Suganuma Future Creation) - dumb sounding name, but very nice products, mostly all exhaust related.  I was interested in his "inner silencer" products like this one.



They come in different diameters to fit different aftermarket exhaust tips, and two color choices - the silver as above or anodized black. What's nice is that you can order the component parts separately, so if you lose a part or a part (like the muffling part) gets burnt/worn out, you can bring it back to "like new" condition quickly and inexpensively.

So I placed an order for a black anodized one in 112mm size (product number 117BK), and a few days later...

Cute, I guess? 

 So I unpacked it right away and found a thin steel tube covered by what appeared to be a thick fiberglass or similar sound baffling material. Presumably heat proof too.

The packing material is covered by silver colored paper (to protect during shipping I guess)

Of course, me being me, I have to clean out the inside of the exhaust tip before installing.

As you can see, it's a bit of a snug fit.

But of course, like most things Japanese, quality engineering means it fits perfectly!

Comes with these bits.

And the result? AWESOME! The car still sounds superb, but it's like everything was taken down 30-40%.  Yes of course for track days and Hakone touge runs I will remove, but for around town this is simply perfect.  In fact, it's so good I find myself not using the Blitz E-ESC, and I may end up removing it... we will see...

Ok next post will also be about a non-WORX issue, something I've been tinkering with for the past few years actually... stay tuned!

First Post for 2015: Sound Clip of the Blitz E-ESC

First, Happy New Year Everyone! 2015 will be a good year for mods, I have lots planned so whether I have the time to do stuff will be the main problem! 

Second, I had gotten some requests for a video/sound clip of the Blitz E-ESC electronic exhaust valve in action.  Unfortunately it may be a bit hard to tell the difference due to the limited sound recording capabilities of my iPhone, but I think you can somewhat tell the difference. Incidentally, it seems MUCH more quiet from INSIDE the car, but that's probably because one gets used to the drone of the Tomei exhaust at engine speeds above 1200 (so basically all the time) and then all of a sudden when the car is at a light and the revs drop to 1000... silence (ok so it's relative but heck the wife was surprised...)

You will see from the video that what Ninomiya-san (who installed the E-ESC) told me is correct - basically there is no difference in sound from about 20% open all the way to 100%. There is a drastic difference however once the valve closes to 15% or less... here in the video you can hear, when the valve is open at only 5%, the engine sounds that remain at idle, and additionally you can also see that the exhaust smoke (it was really cold outside when I shot the video) diminishes as well.

Enjoy!

Silent Running... or Am I Going to Damage The Engine?

By now, everyone knows that the Tomei Powered EXPREME titanium exhaust which I fitted to my car (after having served as the jig during the design of the EXPREME exhaust) is loud. In fact, for use in Japan, the exhaust is labelled as for off-road use only.  Clearly it does not have the JASMA sticker which would indicate it passes certain criteria to be considered "street legal."

In any case, the loudness does me no favors - if I want to leave my house early, or come home late, it wakes up the neighbors.  Of course I use the Tomei supplied bung, but it still doesn't really quiet it to the level of a regular road car.  And of course, the bung defeats the purpose of a race exhaust, as it means I run around with a half blocked exhaust.

Of course I'd run the car without the bung, and the response is noticeably improved.  It makes the connection between right foot and engine, extremely direct.

So basically, I got tired of the compromise known as the "exhaust bung"

This lead me to some research. I quickly learned that A'PEXi had produced a manual, wire operated "Exhaust Control Valve":

However, not only is there no cool factor, but the prospect of having to drill a hole somewhere, plus the need to always think about whether the valve was fully open or closed, was too much for me. I needed something automatic.

And then I saw an article in GT-R magazine for a product that appeared to be designed for the R35 - the Blitz E-ESC.

Basically, this is a fully programmable, motorized exhaust valve - it combines a motorized version of the A'PEXi valve:

From: http://www.blitz.co.jp/products/exsystem/eesc/e_esc.html

 With a computer brain and a controller:

Normally I might do the install myself, but I figured the scraped knuckles, and time away from family was not worth it.

So off to Be Ambitious, where Ninomiya-san did his usual great job.  I also consulted him for some other work, which will likely end up done and thus posted to this blog.

The view tonight as I picked up the car

There was also something else very weird he was working on....

Ninomiya-san, however, warned me that he thought that this device had the potential to damage the engine, due to back pressure caused by the valve in its closed position.  Further he explained, basically there was no difference in exhaust sound, from about 20% to 100%.  Which meant that any value to this device, would be from 0% to 15%.

However, at 0% the valve is closed, and the only avenue for the exhaust to escape is a small hole:

He felt that running around with the valve in this position, would cause premature wear on the engine, with the increased back pressure. There would be no advance warning either.

So he set up the device so that it would fully open at 1200 rpm. Granted, my idle is about 900-1000 rpm, so this device is closed at 0% only when I am idling, at a stop light. As soon as I step on the gas, the valve opens up to 100%.

I don't have a sound clip yet, but from driving the car home tonight, yes the car is ridiculously quiet at red lights. In fact so quiet if I didn't hear the engine noise I would wonder if the car was on.  I played with the unit a bit, and while 0% is extremely quiet, at 15%, even 20%, the car is quieter than before with the bung inserted. So if 0% puts a stress on the engine, maybe 15-20% is the way to go?

The irony, of course, is that in parking the car, I have to step on the accelerator to get the car to back into my garage.  This raises the RPMs to above 1200, which results in the full roar of the exhaust.  My wife confirmed that, from inside the house, she did not notice any difference as compared to before.

In any case - my plan for the moment is to set the device to open fully at 1200 RPMs (or should it be a higher number?), but also to set the minimum value at 15% or 20%.  What do you guys think - will this result in premature wear to my engine?  Or is this relatively harmless? Maybe there is a way I can program it so it only goes to 10% or less when I need it to....

Let me know your thoughts, please!