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Performance exhausts for the world’s fastest machines 25 years of race exhaust fabrication Good Fabrications was started in 1984 by Steve Good, an ex-McLaren fabricator. Known in the race world as ‘GoodFabs’, the company has made exhausts for hundreds of race cars around the world. F1, NASCAR, WRC, Indy Car and Sportscars have provided the bulk of the work over the past 25 years, but GoodFabs also builds specialist one-off systems and prototypes for brand new and historic cars alike. GoodFabs also supplies bends, tube and specialist exhaust components to other custom fabricators and race teams with their own fabrication shops. GoodFabs forms its own exhaust tubing from sheets of aircraft grade stainless steel, inconel and titanium. Due mainly to its own demand for multiple types of bend, GoodFabs now owns one of the largest selections of mandrel bend tooling for the manipulation of exotic metals outside the aerospace industry. A full tooling chart can be downloaded from www.goodfabs.com GoodFabs Cosworth XF turbo exhaust system on a dyno cell The GoodFabs approach Photo courtesy of Sutton Images Working for race teams and engine builders for the past 25 years has given us a unique insight into what makes a good race exhaust. The exhaust system is often the last part of the racecar to be built. It needs to work in a very confined space and will often be expected to provide extra power, survive massive rpm, weigh very little and fit a budget. As the exhaust is the only remaining major fabricated part on a modern F1 car, the ability to manually replicate a complex design, many times over, is critical. Most race designers and engineers will talk to us before and during the creation of the initial prototype to ensure that the design theory fits the real world. Once proved on the dyno, we then have to produce full systems in very tight time frames. As with other top level racing parts, we cannot build systems for stock as the design could change at any point. In short, GoodFabs is a technical partner rather than a supplier of parts. Case study - Working with Formula 2 MotorSport Vision’s Formula 2 Series gets underway in 2009 Photo courtesy of Sutton Images The development of the Williams F1-designed Formula Two car for Jonathan Palmer’s MotorSport Vision illustrates the way that GoodFabs can work with customers to help an exhaust system evolve. GoodFabs needed to produce 25 systems in a very short time frame as the final design was still being refined within weeks of the first race. Faced with a turbocharged 4 cylinder engine, the exhaust system had to withstand incredibly high levels of heat. A team approach, involving all three companies working to tight timeframes, produced a system using a combination of stainless steel and inconel to fit both the car and the budget. GoodFabs is pleased to help Motorsport and Engineering students realise their own exhaust designs. In 2009, GoodFabs worked with Brunel University, Oxford-Brookes, The University of Surrey, Bath University and Coventry University to prepare their cars for the Formula Student competition at Silverstone. Coventry University’s 2009 Formula Student Car Experience Our fabricators work hand in hand with our in-house CAD Designer / Engineer to ensure that the exhaust systems are built to the exact CAD model. All work is quality checked at various stages of the build while design suggestions can be made to improve the fit or performance during the fabrication process. GoodFabs has the expertise and software to design full systems from scratch based on a specification from the engine builder. When reproducing existing systems we can either copy originals by sight or create a CAD model prior to fabrication. If an existing system is overseas or unavailable then we can produce a CAD drawing from a laser scan. We produce specalised jigs for the vast majority of our work and, as a result, rarely see a race car in our workshop. GoodFabs has experience in many different categories of global motorsport including: • Rallycross • World Rally Cars • British Touring Cars • Le Mans • FIA GT • Formula Palmer Audi • F1 • NASCAR • DTM • Cart • Drag Racing • Historic F1 • Formula 2 • F3 • F3000 A partner for the fabrication industry Whilst GoodFabs is renowned for supplying exhaust systems for the highest levels of motorsport, the company also works with other fabricators requiring GoodFabs’ high quality bends and components. A new web tool at www.goodfabs.com helps our customers find the right combinations of material, wall thickness, angle, diameter and centre line radius (CLR) that we can bend. With over 130 bending tools the bend combinations exceed 10,000. Although we would encourage anyone to call and discuss their needs and time frames directly with us, we are happy to take orders through our online shop for: Bob Want at Tools for Bending, the Denver based company that makes most of the company’s bend tooling, sees GoodFabs as having a unique position in the market: “GoodFabs is able to bend the most exotic materials at the highest quality in the greatest number of bend combinations that we know of. Although some US aerospace companies can bend inconel in multiple forms, GoodFabs can fulfil the kind of small order quantity that custom exhaust fabricators require”. Where an immediate price cannot be quoted, we have a ‘request for quote’ service and custom bend calculator for online purchase of: • Stainless merge collectors • Silencers / mufflers • Links, tags and bosses • V band rings and clamps • All inconel, titanium and aluminium components • Mandrel bends • Straight tube • Silencers / mufflers • Step rings We quote and take payment in GBP, Euros and Dollars and accept all major credit cards. www.goodfabs.com Contact: Good Fabrications Ltd Unit 3A, Drakes Farm, Drakes Drive, Long Crendon, Aylesbury, Bucks, HP18 9BA T: F: E: W: +44 (0) 1844 202850 +44 (0) 1844 202833 info@goodfabs.com www.goodfabs.com