Like some of the other threads on NAM, this in my opinion (take that for what it is worth ..) has gone overboard.

Alta claims and advertises a certain output. If I lived close to Alta I would purchase their complete exhaust and do the tests. If I did not get the results that they claim, I would take the car to Alta and say "fix it". If they can not produce the same results on my car repeatedly, then I would be entitled to a refund.

As an engineer, I work daily with companies claiming all sorts of stuff. When I get their product and it does not work as advertised, they are forced to make it so. Sometimes it results into discovering something was missing that needed to be done to make it work. Sometimes it results in discovering a product that is falsely advertised.

In my opinion I do not feel that Alta is trying to smoke job the community and seems to be willing to work with folks to make their results work with your car.

There are many types of "tuners" out there, but it boils down to two types. 1. the bolt on tuners and 2. the detailed block tuners. Alta is a bolt on tuner because they are in the game of selling goods to anyone that can use some tools. Jan his company is a block tuner that take an engine and strips and rebuilds the parts to gain every possible power gain available. The costs between the two can be small or very large depending on what needs to be done. I used to do the block detailed tuning and can speak for that level.

I would be willing to take on a challenge (I am in California and have to deal with our @#$% smog stuff and the exhaust is not 50 legal) if Alta wants to work with me. I will do a dyno (at a reputable shop within a reasonable travel distance) before and after and if the results are not there, they will have to provide the missing fixes. If the results still can not be achieved, then I think I would be entitled to a refund ..... I will also do a smog test before and after to see what the difference are on the cat side of things .....

Alta ?

Folks ?

 

This is true. In my experience, all my performance gains where easily achieved by the reducing the turbulence in the intake and exhaust via porting and polishing. That was the easy part for a quick and dirty increase. You will be amazed at what the hell is going on in stock engine of any kind when you run a scope into the internals !

 

anyone have a photo of the WMW exhaust in black?

trying to decide on polished or black before i order.
thanks.

 

 

I saw it yesterday; it's sinister looking.
I didn't take a picture of it except for a close-up of the inlet area.

I'd put the black ones on the light color cars (MY, CR, PW, etc) and shiney ones on the dark cars for contrast.
But, then again, black on black would look spiffy...

 

I don't have a good pic of the black one, except on my car . Here's an old picture of the prototype, including the test thermal coated downpipe. The production version of the downpipe isn't coated, AFAIK.

 

Ok, I will admit that I am not always the sharpest tack in the bunch and can be rather slow or pig headed at times, but ......

We all/mostly know who the Alta folks on the forum are and they show up as vendor/manufacturer .... We all/mostly know who RMW / Jan is and they come up as vendor/manufacturer ....

Terryg which I thought was a user is really a vendor and Way Motor Works and has their own exhaust system plus Alta and Milltek .... Never really connected the two till now. See slow ....

Now I do not know all the rules here and really do not care about the rules since I have nothing to market to the mini group nor do I want to, my camp is in old classic motorbikes .... Nor I am out to compare anyone to anyone or point fingers. But is it somewhat unfair to pass off as a user vs vendor and push one owns product yet be an authorized dealer for Alta ?? Where are the dyno results of the WMW exhaust for a turbo back setup on the WMW site ? Is the WMW system 50 states legal ?

I am not after rattling cages nor offend anyone, just wondering since I do like both the Alta and WMW exhaust and still debating which to go. I have done my calculations and how it relates to R56 pipe and output and know the route I want to go. But the threads here is really making me wonder which person/vendor I want work. Honestly, I am really sick and tired of buying stuff, then having to chop it all and re-machine everything my shop to get what I want without have to design it from scratch myself. My goal this go around for exhaust and some other stuff is to use what is made to achieve my goal.

 

Quote from Alta:

"He is the tuner and the one commanding the tests. I don't get to "tinker" with the numbers and neither does Adam. Calling the numbers false or exaggerated is calling Jeff a liar and he works very hard to ensure that the number are 100% accurate and repeatable."


Call Jeff whatever you want. The numbers are obviously not 100% repeatable or there wouldn't be any naysayers here who own Alta products. You say that you don't get to tinker with the numbers but Adam is often saying how hard it is to dyno the R56 and how many tries it takes to get it right. This shouts to me, "good luck repeating our dyno numbers and if you don't repeat them, it's because you don't know how to dyno an R56."

There are many quality engineers and companies that put out lower quality products because they are profitable. BMW has incredible engineers and they put out the 318ti 10 years ago. Just because Jeff is incredibly talented and works on race cars, it doesn't mean that the Alta catback is a supreme product that will consistently produce dyno results like those seen in the Alta shop.

 

thanks....i def. want to do the black.

mmm, sexy. thanks.
I saw some pics of your car from MOTD over on the MU....lookin good.

 

Terryg and I pay for our mods; WMW just happened to open a second shop near us and we can get our hands on products early.
Sometimes we'll get a cheaper price but the product might also be in it's beta stage, unpainted, ugly, need revision, etc...

Way's earned my respect as a tuner, builder, and designer. I've driven with him on the track and wrenched with him. I'm not saying that other vendors don't know the business, I'm just saying that I've personally witnessed the Evil Genius at work and have seen the results.

The Atlanta area is pretty hot on motorsports in general. We have several road coarses nearby and we all know each other. We get together alot and compare notes. And we've got the mountains right here too...
It's a great place to live if you want to mod and go fast.

 

Sorry for any confusion. The point I think ALTADESIGN was trying to make, was that this type of product, tuning and workmanship is a full time career for Jeff and that his methods are accepted by world class rally teams. If we were a fly by night, half baked company with overcooked claims, they wouldn't entrust us to do this type of work. Plus TerryG is claiming that their dyno shop does this full time. The impression left is that ALTA / PERRIN doesn't. That is false. We use our dyno nearly every day. To test a variety of vehicles including the MINI.

The dyno results are VERY consistent if tested consistently. I made an error in my first glance at the WMW results. A second glance CLEARLY showed a discrepancy. By their own admission they tested on different days, also different temps and different launch RPM's. My point is the numbers from WMW may IMPROVE over what is shown or be less than shown, but the numbers have little value unless the testing methods are more consistent.

The offer still stands. IF a local client wants to arrive (scheduled of course) and provide a stock vehicle ALTA will gladly test the car before and after installation. We encourage WMW to provide a cat-back for testing on the same vehicle. This would solve the entire argument. An independent person can be here to witness the before, after, launch speed, gear selection, etc. etc.

Also, we are HAPPY to help any shop setup and dyno the cars properly. We WANT customers to get the correct numbers etc. Why wouldn't we? So again, the offer is to help, not hinder the process.

I do want to stress the quality of our product, the professionalism of our staff as well as the countless years of experience. We didn't get here overnight and by misleading clients.

Thanks for the post!

 

That's an interesting offer.
Can anybody work that out?
Are you saying that you'd basically donate dyno time for science?

 

I'm not a vendor, I'm just the owner of the car that Way used as the test mule for the R56 exhaust and turbo heat shield. He gave me a discount on the parts for being able to use my car, but they certainly weren't free I also got to meet with the fabricators and provide feedback on the various elements of the system. I did make it clear in previous posts that I am a biased poster since I was allowed to be a small part of the process, but I have absolutely no financial involvement in any of this.

I also stressed that you should do hands-on examinations of all of them if possible before buying. Exhausts (especially the tone) are a VERY subjective thing. What feels/sounds great to one person may be horrible to the next.

I also pointed out that I thought the Alta exhaust took some serious manufacturing shortcuts and that I don't believe their dyno numbers. That is strictly MY opinion. My opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it

 

Looks like the race teams are drinking the cool aid now too...

 

I'd rather donate some money to have the tests done on an INDEPENDENT dyno. It's not hard to fudge dyno results if you know what you're doing. Having someone standing around that's never even seen a car dynoed before isn't going to make the test any more "Official"

Ship one of your turbo back exhausts down here to LA and I'll test it. We've got plenty of R56's rolling around that would gladly pay if they saw a 20 whp gain from your exhaust.

 

Derosi for the BMW CCA Event, are you talking about the one on the 31st at Willow Springs? If so I'll see you there .

 

Yup! Dyno time and manpower.

 

Ok now I'll step in. Terryg is not a WMW employee, just a satisfied customer and I'm upset about him being called WMW. Nothing wrong with him, just the fact the ONE customer of mine that has the guts to speak his mind and believe in my product and gets called out for it. LOOK around on NAM there are so many SHILL's / FANBOYS out there that intentionally run around and deface other companies just because they arn't the Co the SHILL for. Morbius, not mad at you just want everyone reading this to know the TRUTH about him.

As for Dyno sheets on the website. That's not the only thing missing from my site. There are a ton of products and other info that I need to get up there. Unfortunatly I'm not a Web guy, I'm a MINI Technician. So eventually it will get there, but I have to have someone else do it. Trust me it would be WAY more beneficial for me to have everything up.

WMW has not been posting here because I don't have time to Argue with people, or care to. I'll let my products speak for themselves and customers give their own opinions. Because no matter what I say, people need to make their own choices. I just continue doing things right and honest and business will always follow.

Let's put this thread back on track about Exhausts and not just an argument about nothing. It doesn't get us anywhere.

 

Dude --- I have a stock exhaust. I'm not a vendor...

 

Pretty sure he was referring to Alta...

 

-- rant start --

Like I said, not out to insult anyone, but here is what see:

When you order something from WMW, on the invoices I see the following:

To me from a 20,000 mile perspective, that means some sort of associatation. There is no disclaimer about the second address. I think you can see where I coming from on this.

Now from the testing point of view (putting on my engineering/researcher hat), here is what is missing from all this stuff:

1. No one is bothering to mention what dyno's are used and its configuration.
2. No one is bothering to mention what the dyno was configured as before the test was done.
3. No one bothers to mention what all the parameters are for the testing (air temps, weights, tester, etc, etc.)

For any test result to be valid, all data must be published. That data needs to include all the relevant information on how the test was done. Also a single test is total BS, you need to run the test multiple times at different times to ensure accuracy. This also means to test the vehicle by removing it from the dyno, resetting the dyno and start all over again.

Also when comparing against different dyno's, correction factors have to be used to make for a uniform result. Comparing results against different dyno's and even same dyno's with different setups is total BS.

I am not endorsing ALTA or anyone else. Just like everyone, I want facts and not hype. I am sharp enough and have enough knowledge to know how to read the data when all the facts are provided. I have done my time in the tuning/racing world with exotic setups (2 and 4 stroke) and did it when computer where NOT used and tuning was a science and feel. You used your senses and touch to feel what was going on. Its like machining, anyone can run a CNC machine, very few machinists left in the USA that can do everything with paper, pencil and manual lathe/milling machine and produce something better than CNC !!

Like I said before, track time is no test against how well a product is when the variables there are not consistent. Track results will be as accurate as the team that works on the car and how well the driver is. Have the same driver drive all the car with no basis to any product and you might get a more accurate result but I doubt it. Dyno's are also in that game. Put a car on a treadmill style dyno and get some fat slob behind the wheel that adds an extra 100 lbs and 1/2 tank of gas and compare to the same car else where with 3/4 tank of gas and a 125lbs driver and see what you get.

There is a reason why in high levels performance testing when very big bucks are a stake, automated systems are used to run the tests. Accuracy and very consistent results across the board repeatedly.

What I like to see from all this is the following:

1. Detailed info on dyno used
2. Detailed info on dyno config
3. Detailed info on dyno setup for the car
4. Accurate temperature, humidity, and barometric readings when the test are done.
5. Detailed info on the car when conducting the test.
6. Detailed info on the tester
7. Multiple test runs with the dyno completely reset for each test

With that information and possible correction factor to make the dyno's similar, anyone should be able to do a same setup, test and try to get the same results with very little variance.

Some of will think I am ****-hole, fine, no sweat on my back. But I am a firm believer that if you are going to run tests and claim facts, then you need to publish everything related to the test to make the fact valid.

Ask any scientist and they will tell you the same. This thread is like the cold fusion media hype years ago. Some scientist claiming that they discovered a type cold fusion in the jar ..... What a joke, no data to support the claim and when pushed, they claimed they lost the data .... when we did a detailed study on the data at work, we discovered that everyone in the room would have been dead in minutes from the amount of radiation output alone ......

data, data, data, data .....

-- rant over with, now time for lunch and some fun .... --

 

Terry designs websites; bartering for services, not in the employ of...
Honest error.

 

I wasn't sure about that since I was being quoted...

I'd surely prefer an independant dyno too.
I'd be happy to just run 1/4 miles all day with the two systems.

 

Yes, forums can be a great place for information and also tons of BS. Bottom line if the buyer does the homework like anything else in life, then they can make informed decision based on their constraints. I left many forums over the years including ones that I operated because of the BS. Yes there are folks here claiming things, so be it, thats life.

I would strongly suggest updating your online invoices so people names are not referenced but generic addresses used instead. Truth is good and that is what I was after. I was not out to point fingers, I just want to know who the players are and what the goal is.

As for vendors/manufactures posting or not posting here is not an issue. Those of us that started our business many years ago with our own financing and 20+ years later still in business know what it means to have time to do what is needed for the business and its customers.

As for the exhaust and testing, I think my previous post sums it up. Want to compare apples to apples, then detailed details are needed. Want to compare apples to oranges, well that has been done. Those that have very detailed knowledge of supercharger and turbo charges on gasoline 4 stroke internal combustion engines will understand.

BTW, I like the heat wrap for the turbo, nicely done.

 

What he said --^