BTCC exhaust with heat shield for WSR

Design and development of a full championship winning BTCC exhaust with heat shield for WSR

As part of an overall project to design and fabricate an equal length, turbo exhaust system for British Touring Car Championship-winning West Surrey Racing, GoodFabs used their heat shielding skills to retain heat within the system.

By retaining the heat in the system, two things can be achieved:

1) It protects the surrounding components

The temperatures in a turbo exhaust system can be very high, potentially damaging surrounding components (power leads, bodywork, etc.)

Having a heat shield around the exhaust decreases the heat radiation from the manifold which reduces the potential damage to the surrounding parts.

2) It increases the efficiency of the exhaust manifold and increases the potential power

By shielding the manifold, the heat is retained in the exhaust manifold, which aids the scavenging effect of the manifold which can reduce the pumping losses of the cylinders to evacuate the exhaust gasses.

This shield also possibly reduces the temperature in the engine bay where often the fresh air is drawn in to feed the engine; reducing this temperature is another potential increase of engine power.

This was a challenging project due to the limited space available around the system within the engine bay.

GoodFabs used the experience of its skilled insulation team combined with precision tooling.

This tooling, designed and manufactured in-house, produced moulded shells allowing the integrated heat shield to provide a snug fit following the tight curvatures of the mandrel-bent system throughout.

3mm Microtherm insulation material was initially used to clad the system, after which 0.2mm dimpled inconel foil was applied and spot welded into position.

The dimpled pattern, developed by GoodFabs, has two main purposes:

• To increase the strength of the very thin and lightweight inconel foil to increase durability

• To double the surface area of the metal foil where the natural convection of the heat shield takes place

This is a proven combination, which is not only lightweight and extremely durable, but also provides the thermal insulation required to perform in some of the most demanding racing conditions.