When you give an 8-liter V10 the exhaust it deserves

This is an original 2000 Dodge Viper GTS and although it is powered by a massive 8L V10 that produces over 450 horsepower, these second generation Vipers are disappointingly quiet at idle, sounding not much different than a vacuum cleaner and under a Strong acceleration barely generates a rumble worthy of a V10, this car's

exhaust

simply doesn't match its aggressive styling and low stance and it's certainly not what you'd expect from 488 cubic inches of American muscle, but that's about to change because In this video we are going to install a full

exhaust

system that will dramatically change the sound of this Viper.

We're also going to optimize the Viper's tune and measure its output on a dyno to find out how much horsepower and torque the Viper gains with its new exhaust setup, then we'll race a Shelby GT350 to see how this old Viper performs. compares to the most powerful naturally aspirated engine Ford has ever put in a production car. The exhaust system we're installing today is a little unique because it's done. of parts from two different companies At first we have ballingers 1 and 3 4 heads of equal length that are made from a ceramic coated aluminized steel alloy Beyond the standard advantages of long tube heads, these heads are specially designed to create a venturi effect that evacuates the exhaust gases more quickly and the ceramic coating will reduce engine compartment temperatures by keeping more heat inside the manifolds.

We'll also use a pair of high-flow catalytic converters to further reduce restriction. The rest of the parts come from the Billy Boat exhaust and what it is. What's special about this section of the exhaust system is that it has an more power. process of removing the stock exhaust system by removing the valve covers and heat shields that cover the stock manifolds, we can then remove the bolts holding the manifolds to the cylinder heads and jack up the car so we can access the v-clamps that They connect the manifold to the catalytic converters I had to loosen mine with an extension and a hammer, but once the clamps are removed the manifolds are pretty easy to remove.

We then removed the passenger side rocker panel to gain access to the catalytic converter and resonator on that side. First, we let up. the front and rear brackets and then the oxide field c clamp that holds the cat and resonator together. It took me about the length of a friend's episode to separate them. It's what the Japanese call unagi. Next, we loosen the muffler bracket and it is secured so we can remove the resonator after repeating this process on the other side and removing the muffler. I weighed all the original exhaust parts and the total was 101 pounds, then I did the same with the new parts and they weighed 89 pounds on the first step.

To install our new exhaust system is to hold one of the head gaskets in place with three of the bolts provided. One really cool thing about these Bellinger headers is that they are actually two separate pieces, which makes putting them on the engine surprisingly easy once. We finished bolting on the header, it's time to put the Y-manifold on, but first we apply some rtv copper on its flange to prevent exhaust leaks, then we bolt it on. The next piece of the puzzle is an elbow with a three bolt flange that we also applied. some rtv copper so that once the elbow is in place we can test the fit of the catalytic inverter reducer and resonator.

In my case, the resonator brackets extended about three-quarters of an inch beyond the bracket holes, so I used an angle grinder to shorten the reducer. about an inch then I reassembled the cat reducer and the resonator and the brackets lined up perfectly now we can install the x tube connect it to the resonator and install the O2 sensor downstream after repeating this process on the other side we finished the things squeezing. all the clamps, reinstalling the valve covers, HVAC components, air box and rear wheel, we are going to leave the rocker panels off for now so we can easily check for exhaust leaks and make any necessary adjustments now before make some proper cuts with this. new exhaust setup first let's dial in the viper tune on the street sand off road in reno nevada the owner dustin has tuned over a thousand cars from camaros to ferraris all types of off road vehicles and my mustang several times the The first step in this process is to add another plug near one of the heads so we can connect a wideband sensor to monitor the air-fuel ratio while tuning.

This is a more precise approach than using a tailpipe tracer like we did in the tuning video above. and for those of you who watched that video, the viper's tune has been reverted to the original for this video, so the first run we will do is the original tune with the new exhaust system, the viper was able to make 420 horsepower of wheel power and 447 pound-feet of torque now, this is only about 10 horsepower more than the Viper's baseline and just goes to show that throwing parts out of your vehicle without retuning it often produces suboptimal results, in our case , the viper is running too rich on the air fuel ratio. actually dropped to 10.3 in the midrange, so we reduced fuel by 5 across the entire rpm range and removed 3 degrees of timing at the top end in case we're leaning the engine too much, our initial tuning adjustments allowed The Viper makes 428 wheel horsepower and 470 pound-feet of torque, which is a respectable jump.

The AFR ran slightly lean this time, so we increased the fuel by one percent at those points and this time added the three degrees of timing that we removed in the previous tune. The Viper made 447 wheel horsepower and 492 pound-feet of torque, which is the most this car has ever produced, so we decided to boost it by adding another 2 degrees of timing for a total of 33 around 4,500 rpm. Our timing advances only resulted in a couple more horsepower for a total of 449 and the torque curve was virtually the same as the last run

when

you keep adding timing to a naturally aspirated engine while keeping the afr at a mid to high range of 12 seconds and that engine stops making more power.

I've basically maxed out that engine, and while these numbers represent about a nine percent increase over stock, I have to admit I'm not all that happy with them. I'm also not too thrilled with how quiet the exhaust still is, although it's nice that IMO the Viper no longer sounds like a bathroom fan, it just sounds like it should have come from the factory, so I asked David at Street to Sand to cut the resonators to not only make the exhaust louder but hopefully free. It also gains some extra horsepower and that's what the Viper sounds like now.

Oh, with the resonators off, the Viper makes 458 wheel horsepower and 505 pound-feet of torque, and while that's only a 12-fold increase in peak horsepower, the key takeaway here is the area between the Cornering, the Viper makes more horsepower and torque everywhere, especially in the midrange where it maintains 500 torque at the wheels at 700 rpm, but now it's time to see how this Viper compares to a Original 2017 Shelby GT350 with the 5.2-

liter

voodoo V8, this feat of Ford engineering revs to over 8,200 rpm and generates 526 crank horsepower. Now some of you may be wondering why this car isn't a Corvette.

I have spread the word several times on social media and contacted friends who were trying to find a willing Corvette Owner, but for some reason I have not been able to find anyone interested. Many thanks to Lucio for offering his magnificent gt350 for today's race. Lucio also has his own YouTube channel called Cars and Kilos where he works and competes. his gt350 against scat pack mustangs and bmws, you should check it out now. What's interesting about this matchup is that the GT350 actually puts out a little more horsepower at the wheels than the Viper, but has significantly less torque and while the Viper hits max power. around 5400 rpm, the Shelby doesn't do it until mid-7k, so here we have two high-performance vehicles that make about the same maximum power, but one is a low-revving, low-torque beast and the other is a high revving whale in Chewbacca.

The Shelby initially starts moving forward, but once the viper's roaring e10 builds some momentum it will be able to slowly pull away from its snake companion for the next run, we will increase our initial speed to 20 to 30 miles per hour and try to get the shelby closer The power band starting at 30 seems to have helped the Viper more than the Shelby, so now we're going to try a 60-lap second gear to see if that changes the result. What was setting up to be a great race came to an abrupt halt

when

I shifted into third gear and the Viper suddenly lost all power.

I couldn't

give

the Viper any throttle and could feel that the accelerator pedal had fallen to the floor. Upon inspecting the pedal, I discovered that the accelerator cable was very loose. and at this point I'm really starting to sweat a lot because one it's 90 degrees outside and two, we're almost 100 miles from home in the middle of nowhere and the viper can't be driven after about a half hour of playing with it. able to put together a temporary solution that was good enough to take me home. A big thank you to Lucio for coming to run and being kind about this whole ordeal.

Hopefully we can run this race again after I fix the snake and As always, a big thanks to Dust and Street to Sand for letting me hang out recording and ask a ton of questions during the tuning process.