Just spent 250.00 putting 2&1/2" duals on my 82 Z back to the rear axle w/ turndowns coming off the mufflers. They are sitting way too low. My mechanic says to put some 295/50 15's on the back and it will raise it a couple of inches. Also need some traction as it spins all the way into 3rd. I thought about air shocks. Any advice appreciated as wife is pulling the purse strings tighter!! Thanks,
Steve

I cut the hump out from under the rear seat and pop rivited some alm in and ran a bead of silicone around the alm and reinstalled the seats worked great. Every one asked how I had them fit so well.

I have true duals on my 91 and I actually think that I gained ground clearence after having them put on.

Maybe try some spintech low profile mufflers. Ain't cheap though!

I beat the rear seats up probably 3-4 inchs. It was a V6 to V8 swap, so I didn't care about it, the car just hauled ***.

From my 1984 Eldo with front wheel drive, the pipe travelled along the traditional center for the driveshaft propeller. It worked nice being a FWD, but with the unibody F cars, it's not available in that manner. Those low profile muffs sound good... Are those square vs. round?

here have a look

Flowmaster make them too. Here's a dual in/dual out oval.

Only $250 for True duals installed!

:hail:

Hey guys......thanks for the replys. Those mufflers sure look nice. Maybe down the road I can afford to get a pair,but for now I am going to get the 295/50/15's for the rear and possibly some air shocks if needed.I operate on a shoestring buget & i'll just have to be careful where I drive the car. For now they sound good and keep the cops off. This is the most fun I've had in about 20 years!! Thanks again.

alright, here ya go, i got a set of 275/60/15's to get it off the ground a little further (275/60/15=28" tall 295/50/15=26.7" tall)

pics:


lowest point

ground clearance. these are fullsized mufflers too.

dont get air shocks

air shocks take some of the weight of the car.... that puts too much stress on the shock mounts (esp the floorpan one)... eventually they fail.

same deal with coilovers that go inplace of the shocks...

i've had my air shocks for years w/o problems.. Gabriel Hi-Jackers.. i run about 190 lbs in them so my 275.60.15's clear the fenders by about 2 or 3 "

on the strip i let pressure out tho, with the stock shocks my tires rubbed..

plenty of clearance for TD's (even tho i have 3" single now)

my car is actually "lowered" a little onto my tires, have no problems with rubbing.

by "lowered" i mean that i took out the spring isolaters and it lowered the car about 1/2" in the back from stock, but then add the 1.5" it rasied the back from the ground with the bigger tires.

what i got: more ground clearance then with the smaller tires and less fender gap.

I've always had OEM replacements but love that nose to the gravel stance. Many years back an officer stopped by our school... I'd asked about jacked cars and big rear meats... I knew that look just says mean road machine. I'm certainly tempted to jack a bit up in the rear. I even saw an 80s Seville that is FWD as everyone knows, yet the owner had put bigger rear tires and had likely replaced the factory adjusting air levelling shocks with manual ones he could really lift. It [generally speaking] gets all sorts of attention, and you know what I mean by that. hehe (as the officer above replied, he and others frown on and would likely stop you)

mw66nova what long tubes are you running i might have to get me some they look like you have some pretty good clearence and i will need it due to i am soon doing a true dual set up as well with moroso spiral flows or dynomax bullets and i am going tobe getting eibach lowering springs so its going to be low

i have the hedman longtubes. can't remember the partnumber

i wouldn't suggest lowering the car unless it will never see a speed bump. i had a setup with moroso spirals on my car earlier this year, it was way too loud, and sounded like a pulp-wood truck under part throttle. it was bad, and i have a heftier then stock cam too, it still sounded like crap. WOT was pretty cool though, it screamed at ya!

my suggestion: if you HAVE to lower the car, go with shorties and a single system, but if you HAVE to have good flowing exhaust, do not lower the car.

fire & bfh will make clearance it is possible, you just have to be very creative. spintech makes oval tubing and muffler that will help with clearance

theres plenty of clearance to be found under the car if you are creative..... even with a lowered car. my car has dead shocks and dead struts which i hear put the car at a stance about the height of about eibach prolines. the only clearance prbolems i have had are from teh bad shocks letting the car bottom out( brok the rear hangers on both pipes so far)

Got my 295/50 15's installed on the rear and they did the trick. It will still bottom out if i put it in the wrong place,but then again it's not a 4wd! I would love to run across a good set of Weld wheels for it. The 50's look like they could use a little more "rim"but at the same time I dont think I want to alter the factory stance of the car.Cant wait to get her on the track this spring & she how she hooks{and goes!!}Thanks everyone,I appreciate this forum.
Steve

hey man, get some pics, i wouldn't mind seeing the 295/50/15's on one of these cars. do the tires "tuck" under the fender, or do they stick out a little. let's see your exhaust too.

They do tuck under. I mounted them on my stock 82 rims. Looks best from the back w/the mufflers w/turndowns right in front of the axle. Pics will be coming soon. I at least owe everyone that! Thanks
Steve

I had true dual exhaust for 7 years on 2 diff camaros. A 84, and a 88

It's pretty much ran like mw66nova.., but hooker shorty headers (all they had for third gens 7 years ago), no S-pipes, and no H-pipe

Flowmaster 2 chamber mufflers.

My 1st car (84) I put the mufflers where mw66nova did, and a 6" long 2.5" turn down

On my car now (88) , I got the mufflers in the same place, but running 2 4 foot long tail pipes straight out the back, under the axle housing

Both my cars was V-6 to V-8 swaps, stock springs and shocks (worn).

My old one 7 years ago I ran 195/65-14 tires up front, and 235/60-14's out back


Mine now I run 235/60-15's front, and 255/60-15's rear.

The lowest part and only part that even thicks about dragging is where the pipe from the shorty headers makes the bend to go stright back. (right close to the trans crossmember)

Only time I drag is over speed bumps, or some of these rough holey dirt/gravel roads around here, and some of the rough, washed out gravel driveways. couldnt been dragging too much, in 7 years it aint worn a hole through the pipes yet, and aint flattened them out any


We're building a dual exhaust system for my dad's 82 firebird that has the hedman long tube headers, hedman S pipes, summit X pipe, 2.25" pipes, summit turbo mufflers, and 4 foot long 2.25" tail pipes (ran under axle)

It will have better ground clearance than mine, and we can build it all in the hard with just a 4.5" grinder with cut off wheel, and a cheap flux core welder (no pipe bending needed)

wow.......

my pipes are run under the axle and i think i can attribute my broken exhaust hangers to that fact.. id run them b4 the axle exit or over...

Here is a pic of my duals with hedman longtubes. The X-Pipe was very poorly made, but works even though it is probably robbing me of some hp/tq.



if you can't see it...let me know and i will make it bigger

make it bigger

the mods are gunna ban you lol:lala: wasting space

whose wastin space...not me

banned for that ?

well maybe a warning for taking up bandwidth and crap. just dont post too big. nice tho. except the x- over

yea...the x-over sucks *** but oh well. i have a feeling the whole system is going to have to come off the car when i change trannies.

yea that is whats keeping me from using an xover....i dun wanna remove my exhaust

Removing exhaust to drop tranny has to be done with just about any type of exhaust other than stock single.

My duals w/o cross over I have too, but it's no big deal, A total of 18 bolts.

6 on the header coll. rest on hangers. Takes about 15 min. to drop my whole exhaust.

The X pipes are really worth the extra. A good X pipe will give gains of around 25-35 ft lbs torque, and around 30 hp

when i redo my exhuast itll be side exit so no real problems with the trans should exist but since you say 30hp gains with a good x-pipe set up ill use one

Saigon_Bob....

Look into X pipes for your self. After you see the test, track and dyno, then run one your self, you'll never go back to common twin pipes, or single exhaust.
I got way too many dyno/track test to post all. I can say me finds has been as good if not better than what the car rags show, so here's some results from them..

Car Craft mustang......
2.5" duals with H pipe 323 hp 296 ft lbs
open headers 333 hp 304 ft lbs
2.5" with X 335 hp 302 ft lbs


Hot rod...
Hot rod (oct. 2000)

355 SBC
9:1
trickflow alum heads
2.02''/1.06'' valves
comp magnum 286 hyd. cam (236/236 deg @ .050'', .490''/.490'' lift, 110 lsa)
edelbrock performer rpm intake
demon 750 cfm carb
3'' dual pipes
flowmaster "big block" mufflers
hooker 1-5/8'' long tube headers

Headers Headers with X-pipe
RPM HP TQ RPM HP TQ HP gain TQ gain

3000 219.8 384.7 3000 231.2 404.7 11.4 20.0
3100 224.5 380.4 3100 235.3 398.7 10.8 18.3
3200 229.7 377.0 3200 242.6 398.2 12.9 21.2
3300 234.6 373.4 3300 252.0 401.0 17.4 27.6
3400 240.1 370.9 3400 262.1 404.9 22.0 34.0
3500 246.5 370.0 3500 271.2 406.9 24.7 36.9
3600 255.5 372.8 3600 280.5 409.3 25.0 36.5
3700 269.1 381.9 3700 290.3 412.1 21.2 30.2
3800 283.8 392.3 3800 300.3 415.0 16.5 22.7
3900 295.5 397.9 3900 308.6 415.6 13.1 17.7
4000 307.6 403.9 4000 317.4 416.7 9.8 12.8
4100 320.7 410.8 4100 326.9 418.8 6.2 8.0
4200 332.6 415.9 4200 337.0 421.4 4.4 5.5
4300 343.5 419.5 4300 345.7 422.2 2.2 2.7
4400 351.8 419.9 4400 352.9 421.2 1.1 1.3
4500 358.7 418.7 4500 358.7 418.7 0 0
4600 362.5 413.9 4600 363.7 415.2 1.2 1.3
4700 367.1 410.3 4700 369.5 412.9 2.4 2.6
4800 371.2 406.2 4800 375.8 411.1 4.6 4.9
4900 374.8 401.7 4900 380.1 407.4 5.3 5.7
5000 376.7 395.7 5000 381.8 401.1 5.1 5.4
5100 378.2 389.5 5100 381.1 392.5 2.9 3.0
5200 380.8 384.6 5200 381.5 385.3 0.7 0.7
5300 383.8 380.4 5300 384.0 380.5 0.2 0.1
5400 387.0 376.4 5400 387.7 377.0 0.7 1.4
5500 390.0 372.4 5500 391.9 374.3 1.9 1.9
5600 394.8 370.3 5600 395.6 371.0 0.8 0.7
5700 397.2 366.0 5700 400.0 368.6 2.8 2.6
5800 397.1 359.6 5800 402.9 364.9 5.8 5.3
5900 393.3 350.1 5900 401.2 357.2 7.9 7.1
6000 388.0 339.6 6000 394.8 345.6 6.8 6.0



peak HP gain 25.0 @ 3600 rpm
peak TQ gain 36.9 @ 3500 rpm

AVG. HP from 3000-6000 rpm 7.99
AVG. TQ from 3000-6000 rpm 11.1

AVG. HP from 3000-4500 rpm 25.8
AVG. TQ from 3000-4500 rpm 17.2

From some pont. rag.....
X pipe 1.78 60'
H pipe 1.85 60'
X pipe 12.33 E/T
H pipe 12.48

well thats pretty nice to see..... i like teh sound of true duals ... does the xpipe muddy the sound up..

an X pipe will take some of the deep rumble out of the exhaust, give it slightly a higher pitched tone, makes engine sound like it's reving higher than it really is. It dont made the exhaust sound bad at all, just changes it alittle. Listen to nascar cup cars, NHRA pro stock, alot of sportsman class cars, etc

lol cant really tell nascars becuase the rev so high.. and last time i checked nascars had single exhaust

Naw man, Nascar don't run single exhaust. They run very tuned exhaust. 4 into 2 into 1 custom headers, dual 3.5" pipes, X pipe, side exit in front of the rear wheels. (rectangle outlets)

Alot of hours and money goes into a nascar exhaust. I would say about 20 hours in just getting all the pipes to the engine builder spec. for max performance.

They couldnt make 700-750 hp, 9500 rpm out of 355 or so cid engine through single exhaust. Heck it would take a 6 or 8" dia. pipe if not bigger, just no room for that on a car that sits an inch off the ground, then they would give up the benifits of the tuned exhaust lenghts, and X pipe. On cup cars the X pipe will add close to 75 hp. Then the custom lenght headers, collectors, etc

ive seen some cars with only one of the exits.. usually on teh opposite side as the driver to save heat

those exits you see on the nascar cars is a muffler called a boom-tube. they normally have two inlets and one huge outlet. go to the dr. gas website and see for your self. www.drgas.com i think.

yea two in one out.. i know mah nascar #24 for life

oh no I'm sorry to hear that.

But yeah boom tubes are what they use in nascar. I think it'd be pretty sweet to have one of those setups on a thirdgen.

It is possible to dual exhaust a third gen, but it isn't easy and it isn't very cheap. Basically, what I did was follow the path of the OEM single exhaust, except with dual pipes running parallel. It works like this...

I have Hooker headers. The pipes merge together into an X-pipe crossover positioned north-south right behind the front right tire. The exits from the X-pipe feed into two catalytic converters straddled so that they fit where one used to reside. Then two pipes run along the driveshaft tunnel and cross over the rear axle where the single exhaust did. It's a tight fit, but it fits. Then break out into the two mufflers of your choice. If you keep them small enough, you can run them behind the rear wheels where there's a small space. Mustang GT mufflers work here, because they are small enough to fit there. You can get them in Flowmaster, Dynomax, or even glass pack Borlas or something.

I did notice a seat of the pants feel compared with the big 3" single exhaust I had previously. I could have stopped, but I'm a sucker for the sound and the feel. With duals, the sound is more of a stereo effect, whereas it sounded a little flat with the big single. And it did seem to accelerate better.

I'll try to find the photo of my header/X-pipe/Cats set up before I installed it.

lol sorry to hear that its not really that hard to fit true duals... but to get real good clearance is another story