Exactly right! 2 strokes depend on the exhaust for almost all of their performance potential. I've run both longer and shorter pipes on different engines over the years and there is a difference between them. I think a longer, larger pipe is better for torque and a shorter, narrower one is for top speed. I could be wrong there though. I've only ever bought a few aftermarket systems, mostly from THS. But I do remember putting an MIP stinger exhaust on my old gen 1 .15 T Maxx once upon a time when it still ran and was in one piece. It seemed to have the same power down low as the Traxxas blue one I had before, but a noticeable increase in top end power and RPM was there. That pipe had a longer header, but the pipe itself was a few mm shorter and about half as wide as the one it replaced. It gets even more complicated when you introduce multiple chambers and tunable like the old CVEC pipes had and an automatic adjusting chamber like the BUKU ones had. Going with the one that came with the engine usually gives a good balance of both torque and top end. I am still considering throwing a torque tuned pipe on my Kyosho like a Jammin JP-1 to coax a little more torque out of it. The massive THS Savage pipe on my LRP .28 is insane! It's tuned much richer than most run that engine at (Tuned to average settings it was way too lean) and combined with 30% Bones fuel it just flies! But, that combo is also extremely fuel hungry and louder than hell

Here's a good pic of it. It is a good inch or so longer than the one on the Kyosho and quite a bit wider, too. That's on an extended chassis and I still had a hard time fitting it around the receiver box hahaha.