Albert Widmann with the car engine running. He had nearly died of carbon monoxide poisoning from the exhaust fumes. This engine exhaust testing inspired the development of gas vans. Back in Berlin, Reinhard Heydrich immediately set to work within the RSHA for the development of, in the words of Heydrich's subordinate Walter Rauff, a "more humane method of execution" than the "Einsatzgruppen" firing squads which had been used. When a prototype gas van was driven to KTI, Widmann explained to his young chemists that by adjusting the timing of the ignition, one could maximize the amount of poisonous carbon monoxide in the
Aftermarket exhaust parts engine. This is done by using an individual pipe for each exhaust port that has smoother bends with a larger turn radius, decreasing airflow resistance, as well as a calculated pipe diameter to obtain a good scavenging effect for the specific engine capacity. The pipes then merge into a collector and then flow into a larger pipe (down pipe), just before the catalytic converter. With equal length headers, as each exhaust valve in the head of the engine is opened and exhaust gas is forced out, it passes down one of the header pipes and through to the down pipe,