E92 - Akrapovic Exhaust System
By John Thorne
A lot of people ask me how Thorney Motorsport started and how I got into car tuning and as with a lot of people in this industry my story is pretty similar; mad keen on cars, modified and tuned my own cars then friends cars, then set up on my own, all pretty typical. However where I think Thorney Motorsport and myself are a typical is what we think of the tuning industry generally, in short its crap. Before I started Thorney Motorsport I worked in the City as a equities sales and analyst – that’s stockbroker for the Daily Mail readers among you and the City is a pretty unpleasant place to work, the hours are long and antisocial, the people you work with are violently mercenary and will happily break your legs for a percentage but the money is good and means you can spend it all on tuning cars. For all its faults the City is good at one thing, its inability to tolerate people who lie; get caught misleading someone and justice is harsh and swift – you’re out
That’s all very interesting but what the hell does that have
to do with the tuning industry? Well never in the history of business models
has an entire industry seems to be based on bullshit, I know that sounds harsh
but try to think of another industry where almost the entire product range is
based on unsubstantiated claims? I’ve lost track of the amount of customers who
come here with horror stories of being offered one thing and walking out with
another only to have it explained as an issue regarding the weather or
technical differences with the model or any other excuse that can be made up
and it frustrates all of us here. I’m not suggesting we are TMS are Gods, we
all make mistakes and we try to deal with any that we make to make sure the
customer gets what they want but when it comes to tuning products, lets just
say we are pretty dubious on any claims made.
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Its for this reason that we race, doesn’t matter what the dyno says or how fast you claim the car is on track no-one cares except the clock, it doesn’t have an ego or marketing aim, if you win you win – simple. Its also for this reason that we spend so much of our time at TMS developing our own product, currently 22% of our turnover is spent developing new ways to maximise BMW’s performance, most of them don’t work or certainly don’t work well enough to sell with good conscience but those that do work, work damn well and we are proud of it. This is a lot of money to invest but it’s a necessity of developing product you can trust in and we hope people can trust us. Bottom line, TMS only supplies product that we have developed directly with the supplier – it’s the only way we can guarantee that the product does what is says it does.
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With this in mind it is with some trepidation when we are approached with a new product, typically we are very wary and any supplier must agree to an extensive testing process before we even think about supplying it, for us our reputation is paramount but for the first time in 5 years we finally got to see a product that pretty much left us open mouthed. Step forward the Akrapovic titanium race exhaust for the E92 M3.
TMS has a long standing and successful relationship with Milltek Sport, they work with us to create and supply the finest exhausts for the BMW range but they work exclusively in steel so when Akrapovic come along with a titanium road system we are genuinely intrigued. We’re intrigued because titanium whilst extremely light is a right pain to use on exhausts. Titanium is very brittle especially at high temperatures and as a result pretty much every titanium exhaust we used (typically on race cars) barely lasted a season before it needed re-welding or throwing away. Despite its weakness’s it still remains the Holy Grail in exhaust development, as the lack of weight is such a strong aspect to work with.
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Now Akrapovic have a dominant reputation in the motorbike World but in the car market they are pretty unheard of so when the suppliers roll up with this new system we are our usual cautious selves, however the statistics are just too mouth watering to ignore – a 29kg weight saving over OEM – that’s double the saving of a stainless steel system and one of the highest weight savings we’ve ever seen. OK, so we’re begrudgingly complimentary at this point (we try not to show it of course) so next up is build quality. Bugger, I’ve not seen welding quite like it, actually yes I have on a Yamaha Moto GP swing arm.... which was made from titanium and cost £40k, the Akrapovic was literally a work of art. Finally we looked at power, Akrapovic claim a 22bhp gain from fitting the exhaust even without remapping it which we thought was a sensible claim from what we’ve seen in testing the Milltek exhausts – the E92 M3 loves a decent exhaust.
Akrapovic claim to deal with the difficulties of working in titanium by specifying their own unique grade 37 XT titanium alloy which is their own blend (think KFC but less tasty) and a highly guarded secret. Akrapovic then extrude the alloy in house and either hydra form (very expensive using high pressure water) or CNC bend into the required shapes, they claim the material is three times stronger than any other titanium on the market.
As with all product meetings its all smiles and “yes it’ll fit very easily, no we never have warranty claims” etc but the proof for us is the supply and first fit, typically things go wrong at this point. However with the Akrapovic the process began with the same effect as it ended; quiet comments of admiration – and that was just the packaging!
Everything about the system drew admiration, it sat on the floor of my office and everyone couldn’t help themselves but pick it up and marvel at the lightweight. Closer inspection of the rear tips revealed 11 separate pieces in their construction, the attention to detail is astounding. In many respects we didn’t want to fit it – it was that impressive.
At this point I’d happily share a detailed fitting explanation but the fact is it bolted on without even a glance at the instructions (which were on a DVD not a manky piece of paper) and the cars first fire up even stopped people in the office on the phone, the guy I was speaking to actually said “blimey, what’s that in the background”. However it wasn’t that loud, if truth were told I was a bit disappointed, for the £4500 the system cost (yes, that’s not a typo - £4500 smackers) I expected a NASCAR in the workshop and what I got was a part Ferrari/part E39 M5 type of noise, which surprised me. I was in the minority though, the rest of the staff all called me deaf and a “miserable git” when I shared my views but that’s how I felt. I felt the same after the first test drive, with the windows up the exhaust was barely audible through the sound insulation and for that kind of money I wanted it to shout “LISTEN TO ME I’VE JUST COST YOU £4500” and I didn’t get it. This does highlight an issue with exhausts; I mean do you want it to sound good to other people or to yourself? The near round of applause the TMS team gave it when I drove off would suggest that the external noise was the aural equivalent of an orgasm but inside the cabin it all felt a bit muted, calm even.
Fast forward 3 days, 500 miles and a record breaking trip from Cornwall to Milton Keynes at 2am and my faith my opinion was reversed, this car now sounds absolutely stunning. I always thought that anyone who bought an exhaust purely for noise and not power was missing the point a bit but now I get it, a really good exhaust can really make a car. The E92 M3’s biggest issue (other than crap handling) is its complete lack of character, it does the job but gives you no real feeling of soul, bolt the Akrapovic on and its suddenly injected with an Austin Powers level of Mojo – yeah baby!
I even caught myself blipping the throttle at traffic lights this morning; I mean how sad is that? It sounds nothing like a stainless steel system, there is a Ferrari type wail even at low RPM but still seems to give that V8 thump higher up the rev range, its almost two systems in one.
OK, so it sounds better than sex, who cares, what about power? Well, Akrapovic claim 22bhp and we got 21bhp over 9 runs on the dyno (same day before and after runs as usual) so that looks pretty accurate. It certainly feels a lot quicker through the rev range especially, very similar to a remap on its own. The car is now up to 460bhp and we’ve still got stage 2 mapping to finalise so we’re getting closer and closer to a 475bhp E92 M3 (race car will have 500bhp in race trim, but that’s next year).
Its not often we’re blown over by a product we’ve had no
hand in the development, we can’t claim any input or any real opinion in its
design but its the first tuning product I’ve seen in 5 years that has ticked
every box we can think of and that’s worth sharing. Yes its bloody expensive
and yes it means that not many will sell but for those who get one I doubt
you’ll spend better money on your E92 M3, really.
E92 M3 Dyno Chart
John
