wildfaye wrote:dannyboyau wrote:You can also change the position of your maximum torque by changing the length of your intake manifold runners.
from the space in our engine bays, i reckon its not really possible.
what about the length of exhaust manifolds? i heard that the lenght of it will also affect the range of the max torque?
our stock exhaust manifolds are pretty short, read somewhere that short ones are tuned for high end, so does it mean that longer ones are better for mid to low end?

my understanding is similar to to what you have said. On certain vehicles the length of the exhaust runners can make huge differances, I remember discussing the exhuast manifolds one night with a mate who is into the rotary tunning and he made some comments regarding how they where having problems with one engine because of the exhaust runner lenghths.
Here is a couple of passages that might help explain how the runner length works
Exhaust
Primary tube header length is tuned with the understanding that the shorter the primary tubes, the better the high rpm power will be. Each exhaust pulse creates a high-pressure wave that travels toward the collector, and once it meets the collector, is inverted and travels back toward the cylinder as a low-pressure wave. It is this lower pressure wave that helps scavenge exhaust out of the cylinder during the overlap period, and helps efficiency. Street driven cars that require engines with more torque and response do better with longer primary tubes.
Inlet
When the intake valve closes suddenly, the airflow stops and forms a column or a high-pressure wave that makes its way back up the manifold from the cylinder. At the end of the intake runner, at the plenum, the pressure wave bounces back down the intake runner. If the intake runner is just the right length, the pressure wave can be tuned to arrive back at the intake valves just as they are beginning to open again and the extra pressure helps force more air in to the chamber
one thing that is often needed to be thought about is that you need to make sure that each change you make works with each other as you can easily make changes that are detremental to your engines performance if you are not careful