We have been playing with our Mercedes CLA45 quite a bit lately and showing off the Armytrix exhaust on our other CLA Project Car articles. Having already done a pretty cool driving video, we thought we would get into the meat of the exhaust showing how it performs on the dyno and how the car reacts between the different valvetronic modes. The CLA45 Armytrix exhaust is a full stainless steel system. All 304 stainless, it is polished to a super show finish. With about 500 miles on the car, the exhaust is still shining nicely. The fitment and finish is spot on as we described in our original install article here. The welding is brilliant and the OBDII controller to switch between loud and quiet mode is brilliant.
The dyno tests that we did were on our Mustang AWD Dyno here in Gilbert, Arizona. The car was calibrated in 3rd gear to 3000rpm using a parasitic multiplier of 1.00. Octane used was 91 and the ambient temperature was about 80F on this test day. All tests were run in Manual mode from 2500rpm to 6500rpm with traction control off. We did 2 different tests as seen on the below dyno sheets. The first is comparing how the Armytrix does with the valves open or closed. With all variables kept the same except the on and off of the exhaust, we got some good results. With the valves closed, the exhaust is much quieter. Actually sounds really nice for daily driving. With the valves open, its roars and sounds mean as hell. The valves open keep the exhaust free flowing out of the muffler giving the car about a 10ft/lbs of torque advantage and about a 5-7hp gain compared to closed. These gains are noticed between 3300 and 5000rpms.
Our next test compares how the Armytrix turboback exhaust did compared to the car bone stock. We removed the VRTuned tuning box so we could get a perfect before and after result. The turboback gave a gain of about 25ft/lbs of torque and 20awhp throughout the entire curve. Unlike other tests, the power continues all the way to redline. The downpipe is a good contributor to the gain. The factory exhaust system is not that restrictive, but when coupled to a catless downpipe, the gains are very strong. For comparison, we did also have a test done with our Agency Power high flow cat downpipe and midpipe with the stock muffler. Armytrix did edge out that combination, but you could really feel the performance difference in the spool up from the catless downpipe.
Check out our in-depth Armytrix Video below and browse all Armytrix Exhaust for sale here.
