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Breaking Through the Bottleneck: This Alfa Romeo 4C wants to breath free!

Updated: Jul 1


FSE Alfa Romeo 4C
This gorgeous 4C belongs to a long-time customer of ours. We appreciate him for lending us insight into this vehicle.

The Alfa Romeo 4C is a stunning vehicle that captivates enthusiasts worldwide. However, like many Italian sports cars, it has a number of perplexing design issues. One major pain point is the design of the downpipe.


To comply with emission regulations, the stock downpipe on the 4C must include a catalytic converter. However, due to the unique layout of the engine bay, there is insufficient space for this component. Consequently, the 90-degree bend in the downpipe forms an extremely narrow bottleneck. When high-temperature, high-energy exhaust gas flow through, this narrow bend creates restriction, hindering engine's volumetric efficiency. As you certainly know, an engine is essentially an air pump. Efficient intake and exhaust flow are critical to power delivery. How can a high-revving turbo engine, full of passion, be constrained by this? Therefore, replacing the downpipe with an aftermarket one that doesn't contain a catalytic converter tops many owners' modification lists.


Alfa Romeo 4C Downpipe
The Alfa Romeo 4C stock downpipe. An unbelievably bad design on an otherwise very sexy car.

Alfa Romeo 4C Stock Downpipe
Super narrow bend right before the outlet.

Unfortunately, this modification is not as straightforward as it might seem. As mentioned earlier, the limited space around the downpipe requires the removal of numerous surrounding components to access the target area. This inevitably results in significant labor time. Fortunately, our skilled technicians, leveraging their extensive experience, completed the task with remarkable speed while maintaining a high degree of caution and precision.


Alfa Romeo 4C
Louvered heat exchanger exit, taking advantage of the low pressure area behind the front bumper.

Intercooler with proper ducting. Cast End tanks have very smooth radii.

alfa romeo 4c
Engine air intake is on the passenger side.

alfa romeo 4c
Carbon monocoque chassis with fabricated sub-structure. The welding quality screams Italia!

Challenging modifications? Leave them to us to handle with expertise!

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