I would have thought that a 3 piece (or curved) chute would reduce your distance due to extra friction in the chute. The snow leaves the tip of the impeller in a straight line at maximum speed. So each time it touches the side of the chute to change direction, it loses momentum. Plus each change of direction means the stream of snow loses more momentum crashing into itself at the point of change. So is it better to have 1 or two big changes in direction or 3 or 4 smaller changes???
Anyways, not counting the cool factor, I could see value for accurate placement of the snow in crowded city locations.

Cheers

borat wrote:
That's an interesting idea.  My chute is lined already.  So I could add an additional piece.  Or replace the current liner with a longer one.  Have to take a look at that.

"I would have thought that a 3 piece (or curved) chute would reduce your distance due to extra friction in the chute".
Friction isn't that big a factor.   It's more about the loss of velocity that takes place as the snow stream makes an abrupt change in direction. 
Angles versus curves.

GtWtNorth wrote:
It's better not to have any chutes at all.  On some huge airport snowblowers, the chute moves out of the way so the snow comes directly out of the impeller without any friction for maximum throughput.

But I think if the snow is going to make contact with the chutes, it's best to create a smooth and gradual change in direction.

Maybe the two-piece deflector also reduces the amount of snow falling back through the chute onto the blower/engine?  At least on my Crapsman (mtd), I get plenty of snow falling out the backside of the deflector onto the machine and icing it up in places.  I need to try the Krazy Karpet liner...

This discussion brings up a thought for driving the evolution of snowblowers...

Wouldn't it be more efficient to place the chute opening on a rotating collar around the impeller?  Need to blow to the right? Rotate collar to the right.  Need to blow to the left? Rotate collar to the left.  In many cases, you wouldn't need a deflector at all.  The deflector would only be used to direct snow forward/backward of the blower when the need arose.

Maybe I'm overthinking things...

I have the Husqvarna 12527HV which has a chute like this:



I sort of agree though, I don't understand why 2 piece shoot is necessary and on the fancier Husqvarna models its all 1 piece.

jrtrebor wrote:

They did. As do some of the bigger commercial ones used for airports and stuff.

I took a look at the chute/deflector relationship on the Simplicity.   The angle of deflection doesn't appear to be all that restrictive until the deflector is getting close to being horizontal.  I doubt very much that any type of alteration to the chute/deflector relationship would result in any real advantage other than possibly looking more sophisticated.  On the other hand, more joints means more pressure for the control cable and more places for ice to lock up the mechanism.  Simple sometimes equals better.

"Simple sometimes better".........you have that right borat...........