Primary Designs

Sector: Manufacturing

Primary Designs are leaders in the design and manufacture of high-performance exhausts. As a family run business with a pedigree dating back to the early 80’s, their twenty highly-skilled engineers design and supply ultra-light weight exhausts to the exacting motorsport and hyper-car industries. They test and manufacture using advanced materials such as Inconel and Titanium alloys and cutting-edge 3D printing processes, including Direct Metal Lazer Sintering.

Primary Designs

The Challenge

Primary Designs are active long-term innovators. As such they had already claimed R&D tax relief with Easy R&D and were well versed with working with our team. 

Their latest claim was for the research needed to develop and test an ultra-lightweight exhaust system for the Porsche Cayman 718 GT4. The challenge was to release more power through a modular exhaust design system while achieving a noise level and acoustic qualities that were acceptable for both track and road use, while still achieving rigorous vehicle emission controls. The solution also had to be lighter than previous models and the standard OEM exhaust, but with sufficient longevity and durability to make the product value for money. 

Extensive rounds of road and tracking testing were followed by re-engineering the exhaust system and dyno-power testing was required to achieve an acceptable noise and resonance level, while maintaining a significant advantage over OEM exhausts in terms of the power output. 


The Solution

What was critical to the success of the R&D tax relief claim was that they were not certain of achieving all their aims and there was no immediately obvious solution already available on the market. This type of uncertainty and substantive investment in a project with the real risk of failure, are the fingerprints of genuine R&D programme, one that will be eligible for a R&D tax rebate.

Primary Designs

If you’re a small to medium company in the UK, you could also be claiming back up to £33 on every £100 spent on R&D. The work you do that qualifies for the R&D tax credits scheme — often embedded in the day-to-day running of your business — may surprise you.

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