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Hi all,
I am in the early stages of considering the powerflow exhaust STC for my 2004 Tiger. I’ve heard mixed things. One mechanic who is a powerflow dealer said the Tiger already has a pretty straight and short exhaust and not much would be improved by the PF. He said I should throw the $5k into something else. Another mechanic who does installations of the PW, thought it was great. I fly on the east coast but would like eventually to fly out west and possibly to Alaska and thought the higher ceilings and improved climb that are promised would be helpful at the higher altitudes. Anyone have this installed in their AG-5B Tiger and have real experience with it? Just the isolated PF STC, not in conjunction with a 200 hp or constant speed prop STC? If anyone is in the northeast and swears by the PF, would I be able to join you on a test ride? Thanks, David
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I have not owned a Tiger for…GEEZ 40+ years, but I have lurked around the community for much of that time.
Back in the dark ages, there simply were no mods available to improve performance, so we had to cheat a little. Rigging, remove steps, a lot of careful sealing of seams with silicone, etc. helped a lot. Biggest bang for the climb was to remove the baffles from inside of the muffler (the spot welds would break on their own making it easy to hook them out through the exhaust pipe). Believe me from decades of building high performance engines for cars, trucks, boats and planes – the “short and straight” stock exhaust is a long way from decent flow.
I do know a fellow with a AA-5B locally with a Powerflow, and I know his maintenance engineer as well. When I asked them collectively about the Powerflow system, the comments were that there was some small gain in performance, but there were a lot of maintenance issues due to the pipework vibrating, the slip joint needing constant cleaning, cracks, etc. That is one airplane that flies off of a lot of dirt and gravel strips, so I could not attest to the status of its propeller balance (would be CRITICAL to so much potential resonant hardware). This is a “short stack” version. As he owns usually 10 or more airplanes, and restores some very significant (historically) airplanes, I take his comments at face value as someone who is quite objective about maintenance issues.
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