australian lada niva forum

Is anyboby running headers/extractors on their niva?
Is it possable to purchase off the shelf items or should I just get the pipe bender out now and spend a few days makeing my own?

Dunno ... never actually tried.

The standard exhaust should flow quite well, as it's already a tri-Y setup.
Just cut the pipe off at the collector and go up a couple sizes - maybe two inch. No point going bigger unless your a ricer at heart.

don't waste your time & money,you lose power

If nobody has tried it I guess I will have to bend a set up,if it dosent work I have no problem saying it didnt work.
I need a new exhaust system as the one on my baby is buggered but there will none of that milo tin bullshit that is so common,
Whats the dia of the standard ext pipeing?

bobbyd wrote:If nobody has tried it ...

The people who have raced and rallied them for 25 years have probably tried it ...

Lada & Korean Parts wrote:... you lose power

Exhaust flow is something the Italians had well and truly sorted half a century ago.

Take a look at the exhaust manifold design. 4 - 2 - 1. Classic tri-Y, ideal for low - mid range performance. Any improvement you could make on their design would only be usable from about 5000 rpm onwards.


Std is 42mm, with (I think) 38mm tailpipe.
If you just go from the collector in 50mm you'll be more than happy. I am. )

x2

gday i just joined this forum
my trade is custom making exhausts anf extractors and despite what andrew of lada parts australia said ...you will not loose power with a good set of extractors ...but you will from a bad set
the problem is that the extractors have to suit the characteristics of the motor .
I plan to make a set for my niva i have just purchased but i have to register it first .

the niva manifold is not that bad as it runs into a twin pipe setup however the two centre outlets from the head are very short and could do with longer primary pipes ,but it all comes down to price versus performance increase .....and getting hold of extractors is not easy so I iwould not reckomend trying extractors to anyone

however as i make them at work in my trade I will make some and let you know how i go but without a dyno test its hard to tell if they will work

the best thing would be too simply fit a 2inch sports system and check the catylitic converter on later models for signs of blockage and if you do not want it noisy you can have a standard larger capacity tri flow fitted so it can breath better
cheers

cheers

Gday Mick,

Welcome along to the ever growing online lada community, Scott here from the other side of the country. Very Interested to hear about your results, And would be keen on a set for my Niva aswell mate, Sure a few others over here and maybe the kingdom would aswell..

How long have you been in the trade, Do you have any tech info to add to help people including myself understand why the stock system is restricted, and how you think you can improve it.

Thanks mate, Hope to see you around here a bit..

NONE of the extractors made here were any good,they ALL caused power loss......

even the bloke that raced them went back to std manifolds etc.,just port matched.

what you said at the end re 2" system is what i tell them anyway.

goodluck on the pipes

Lada & Korean Parts wrote:NONE of the extractors made here were any good,they ALL caused power loss......

even the bloke that raced them went back to std manifolds etc.,just port matched.

what you said at the end re 2" system is what i tell them anyway.

goodluck on the pipes

Mustn't have been very well designed headers Andy, Even with my very limited knowlegde I know that the stock Lada headers do have room for improvement.

But like has been posted before:

1. I'm worried that any tuned length headers, would not improve the power on a stock engine signifigantly enough to consider paying for them.

2. Lada's come pretty close to the best you can get for low end torque which is what these tiny engines need, I reckon if you get a good set of headers on there you'll lose good low down power.

Headers are the sort of modification that improves the exhaust gas flow and would be really benifical on a modified engine.

I think if you were to start modifying a lada engine you would want to be installing a tuned length set of headers, If keeping it stock I reckon the best bet is the standard manifold with everything from the headers replaced with strait through 2mm pipe, with a decent free flowing muffler, Get rid of the cat if you dare.

Scott.

the only way to be certain as to the benefits of extractors would be to have a dyno and try different lenght primaries and secondaries and see what happens .
but I would expect that some horsepower and or torque increase could be gained .....but i would not recomend anyone actually buying a set for thier niva as i do not think the cost benefit would be worth it .

i know some engines can have a problem with extractors ... a classic case would be the old vw beetle engines while they can give higher revs they loose torrque another is the early v8 range rovers they just didnt like too much flow out of the manifolds .
but most cars do gain a performance increase .

its all high tech stuff needing a dyno to prove the exhaust effectivness
and sadly most extractors are made to suit a price rather than performance

the cat on the niva is almost useless anyway as it is situated too far away from the engine ,ideally a cat should be close to the outlet to work properly .
tuned length extractors would only be for race work anyway .unequal tri -y extractors give better all round power

while i have fitted many engine pipes to ladas in 30 years of exhaust fitting i have never had to pull an exhaust manifold off one till now

i pulled mine off my new niva yesterday and it is not the best design .what worries me is that the front and back ports pretty well much collide in the centre just at the maniflod outlet /
while there is minor flow direction it is only minor and the gases collide (opposing each other ...the center two ports are only short but they do not collide .
therefore i would expect that a set of extractors of a similar tri y design that merges no 1 and no 4 cylinders together in a smoother manner should work but the two pipes would have to be of equal length .
no radical redesigning needed just better merging of the two mentioned cylinders

im a new time owner of the lada and mine when i bought it came with a set of 'genie' extractors which i guess that means they can be bought off the shelf. although ive never driven in one i expected the car to be incredibally slow but it didnt seem that bad, then again ive never compaired it to a lada with the stock exhaust and i am compairing to my mates 2l diesel hilux non turbo. regaurdless i thought genie was a reputable company and they wouldnt have made just any old rubbish that would actually make a car loose power. oh well, maybe with some wicked head work the car will like the exhaust better.

sime.

i got a die grinder and enlarged the hole in the exhaust manifold where the outer cylinders join as the flow is not good at that point then got the engine pipe and enlarged the pipe in that area at the flange .

not a lot of work and maybe not a great improvement but ...anyway ....

Hows about a few happy snaps of those genie headers?