And here goes World War 3 :-) Actually our Italian friend is in his full right to doubt the claimed increase in horsepower for the cat-back systems mentioned. He's also done som correct observations regarding how an exhaust system works on a turbo charged engine. And Italian tuners in general know a thing or two of how to work on turbo charged engines. Because a couple of decades ago Italy had a tax law that punished engines with more than a 2 liter capacity. Therefore a lot of Italian car manufactures made very potent 2.0l turbo/biturbo engines (Fiat Croma, Lancia Integrale, Alfa Romeo 155, Maserati 222 Biturbo etc). There has been a hole industry tuning turbo charged engines in Italy for 20 years now.
I'm sorry to report that in Norway and Sweden, the general word of British tuning companies is that their claimed gains in power all too often is too optimistic. This is based on various objective comparisons of Norwegian cars modified in GB (the modifications often costing a lot less in GB when also including cost for travel and stay) against cars modified in Norway - often with rolling road power figures far below the british modified car. The Norwegian car is nine out of ten times always the stronger and faster. I can't explain it. It is just the way it is.
The best British tuning companies/manufactures as Cosworth, Quaife, Weltmeister, Ninemeister, 4T are of course world class. But I suspect the British tuning market for being too big (regardless of what it said earlier and above), with too many customers knowing too little about what to expect.
The Norwegian tuning landscape on the other hand is in fact quite small. Not unormal when Norway's total population is about 4,5 million, the capital city Oslo has 550.000 habitants, and buying a car in Norway costing at least 1,5x more than the retail prize in GB. We actually pay taxes per bhp on top of co2 etc. :-( |