Can A Catback Exhaust Make Your Car Faster?

As you all likely have noticed, Jason from Engineering Explained runs one of our favorite channels on YouTube. For years now, he’s been breaking down the math and science behind so many topics in the automotive world, helping those of us like myself, who are mathematically incapable understand how things work.

While he can usually be found with a marker in hand in front of his whiteboard, Jason is stepping away from the board today and doing some real-world testing instead of just crunching numbers. He’s ordered up a new exhaust for his Honda S2000 and wants to know just how much difference the new titanium catback helps out, performance-wise.

Starting with the weight, Jason finds a full 34 pound savings versus the factory cat back, meaning if it provides no other benefit, the new setup certainly shaves some pounds off the cars weight. Of course, looking at the 2 systems side-by-side, you can tell the aftermarket system softens the angles and allows the exhaust to escape via a less restrictive route, which should provide the benefit of added horsepower. But how much does it help compared to the factory system? Well it just so happens that there was a before-and-after dyno session, so we know exactly how much power it added. While it’s obvious from looking at the dyno chart that the catback does offer some additional horsepower, the increase is relatively small. Keep in mind, however, there was no change to the exhaust manifold, which would almost certainly show a larger power jump of it was removed in favor of a more efficient header. However, for the purposes of this test, the only change was the catback and Jason does prove definitively that the titanium setup does flow better and allow the engine to make more power.

Maybe as time goes on, Jason will continue to upgrade his car in this manner, doing before-and-after pulls for each modification to prove just how much power is added. With their scientific approach, we know Engineering Explained will always be a reliable source for this kind of info, and we can’t wait to see what’s next.