I'm pretty sure the reason you get the flame and backfire out of the exhaust, is because when you rev it, and quickly snap off the gas, a "burst" of unburned fuel/air will be dumped through the exhaust. If the exhaust system is hot enough, it will ignite the unburned fuel, causing a backfire and sometimes some flame to shoot out of the tail pipe. I'm too lazy to search on google, but I'm sure you'll find a similar explanation there.

 

Here
http://www.foadmedia.com/images/dan-exhaust-flame-1.wmv

 

My catless Subaru WRX did this it was pretty awesome, I remember hearing the pop several times, but i didn't think it was a flame, but one night it did it, and I looked in my side view mirror and saw a orange glow, and I was like holy shit!!! sweeet!!!!!!!!! I will own another turbo car again someday so much fun.

 

It didn't even sound like the engine was on...

 

Drive behind any rotary on the track and you ll see it all the time.

 

the proper term is "afterfire" a backfire is a bad thing..

 

I knew "backfire" didn't sound right. Just didn't know what the proper term was. :-)

 

i'll get you guys a video of a turbo s2k doing it..... however his is only reving around 4k when it happens....

here's one video of it.... however there's no flame but there is a bunch of black smoke......but there are times when all you see is about 2 feet of flames (and this is not damaging the motor)

video

 

Reminds me of those old cars that go 0-60 in 17 minutes.

 

lol, One of the things I miss about my FD. Downshifting as your coming up to a light, the car directly behind stays about 2 car lengths further back.