By: Austin Huffman
What is a Valved Muffler?
The Valvetronic Designs Universal Muffler is a product made to fit every enthusiast’s needs and give them the freedom to choose their exhaust sound level. As rules and regulations get more strict, the time for the perfect exhaust solution is here and we must utilize it to continue to enjoy the hobby we all love.
Why did we build it?
Valvetronic Designs decided to engineer this muffler configuration because we will not be able to build custom exhaust systems for every single vehicle on the road. Creating an adaptable muffler allowed us to give you the flexibility of a premium valved exhaust without breaking the bank.
What makes our valved muffler different?
The goals for the universal muffler developments were simple. The first is that the mufflers needed to be small enough to fit on every vehicle, from Subarus to pick up trucks to SUVs to small sports cars. The challenging thing is with a small muffler, there is a small amount of area for the exhaust to expand into in order to lower the overall volume. This challenge directed us to use a very high quality packing material and perfect our design to allow for the ultimate flexibility to be achieved with a relatively small packaging. The next objective was to ensure that all enthusiasts would be able to afford these mufflers, but still offer high quality materials. We are putting the power back in the enthusiasts hands to be able to enjoy the car that they love, but not have to deal with many compromises that come with other exhaust set ups. The final and most important vertical for us was to give a very dynamic sound experience from loud quiet. With the valves open we know that enthusiasts want a very enjoyable raw experience, but don’t want to deal with the unwanted drone inside the cabin. This is why, even when the valves are opened, they flow nearly the same as a straight pipe, but due to the muffler configuration, allow far less drone than a traditional straight pipe setup. With the valves closed our goal is to bring the sound levels back down to an OEM level to ensure the neighbors stay happy, and whoever happens to be a passenger in your vehicle would never know the car has been modified. This flexible experience is so valuable and once you have the valved setup, you will never go back.
The development of the Valved Muffler Kits.
We started our development nearly 3 years ago with a simple, off-the-shelf muffler canister that had a very dense packed core. The set up was extremely dynamic, having a huge sound change from open to closed. The troubling thing was this traditional muffler canister was quite large, and it was hard to fit it under certain vehicles. The next rendition of the muffler came when we significantly decreased the size of the muffler but we ran into our next issue. The issue with this was in order for the exhaust gasses to stay inside the muffler, the piping size inside the muffler had to be extremely small, which was fine for cold starts but for long distance hard driving this back pressure could decrease performance. As our developments continued, we settled on a muffler casing that was smaller than most OEM canisters, and with a proprietary internal design, allowed for great flexibility from valves open to valves closed. This configuration also allowed for minimal performance change when the valves are open or closed and a very big sound change in order to keep the vehicle as dynamic as possible. Around the world, individuals have enjoyed the flexibility of these mufflers. We will be continuing our development in order to make the mufflers even better as we continue to learn more. We are excited for you to be a part of the journey where the road takes us next.