Yes, I've done some searches, but I haven't found what I'm looking for.

My car, for the most part, is virtually stock. I'm looking for a nice exhaust system to help her breathe better. I'm thinking of getting everything done, headers to tips.

Right now I have a flowmaster muffler with a single exhaust pipe in the back. I heard flowmasters are cr*p, so should this get replaced?

I'm thinking dual exhaust. H-pipe? X-pipe?

I also want electronic exhaust cutouts (stainless steel) and I want the whole system to be stainless steel. I don't want rust! (My car also grinds over everything, so I dont want my exhaust tips to hang out very far in the back.)

I'm not a fan of very noisy exhausts, so sound isn't an issue for me, getting the most horsepower out of my car is.

Thanks!
Bill

P.S. Will exhaust spewing underneath my car (via open exhaust cutouts) make a mess out of the bottom of my car?

 

If it was me, I would run 2.5" duals, X-pipe, and some magnaflow/Hooker mufflers. Both sound nice and both are pretty much free flowing.

 

Is that too much flow? I hear if there is too little back pressure, I'll lose horsepower. (Again, I'm looking for hp, not sound. But, sound is nice too.)

I also read on another thread that sometimes a y-pipe is ideal for lower horsepower engines, as in <350. Is this true for my application?

 

I ran dual 2.5 on my 305 (before engine swap) and picked up alot of power.

 

Looks like the consensus is for a dual 2.5 system. I read somewhere to go with a 1.75 inch system, but it looks like 2.5 is the way to go.

Can anyone point me to a specific brand/model of headers, pipng (is that what it's called?), electronic cutouts, and a muffler/catback/both? (anything I'm forgetting?)

I'm looking for stainless steel, or something else that will never rust as well as getting it coated.

 

Hmm.. someone just told me single cat is better than dual cat. what's up with this?

 

I dont think that would have too much an effect on the sound. I'm not sure however. My friend owns a Lincoln Mark VII thats very loud and he has multipal cats on it. You might have a much harder time passing inspection if you have a powerful exhaust and only one cat because it would be harder for the single cat to clean all the No2 and other hazerdous stuff out of the exhaust stream.

 

Throw all that out the window, and I'll tell you the truth.

In SBC applications, as well as MOST other performance V8 applications, the LESS backpressure, the BETTER.

Any backpressure, AT ALL, impedes exhaust flow and impedes your performance. The reason that it feels like it has "more torque down low" with a more corked up exhaust is because the powerband has moved DOWN and you just FEEL it more. In reality an uncorked exhaust will make WAY more power, and be FASTER.

The absolute BEST exhaust for performance would be custom made long tube headers with dumps right underneath the engine.

In your application, for the BEST flow going through mufflers I'd suggest 2.5 or 3 inch true duals off of long tubes with an X-pipe going into two mufflers of your choice (I'd stay away from flowmaster). It will sound awesome, won't be incredibly loud (it will be loud though) and it will flow EXCELLENT.

The absolute BEST exhaust for performance would be custom made long tube headers with dumps right underneath the engine.

 

it all depends on what you want...if you want something bolt up, you should look into a catback system. I don't know of too many that come in stainless however. And if they do they are gonna cost you close to a grand just for the catback system.

If you want something custom, I would probably go with duals. I have duals on mine, and the sound is real nice, but its dumped underneath, it'll be up over the axle soon enough tho.

as far as custom goes, its gonna be hard to find a place that will weld stainless, because everybody's MIG is setup up with regular wire, so some places might not touch it just becaues you probably won't get a decent weld. also most exhaust shops don't have mandrel benders, so you gotta do crush bends, which is terrible as far as flow goes, but its no big deal as long as you have a cutout before all the bends

and the cutout won't be bad for the underbody of your car, just point the outlet downwards a little bit..just be smart about it..

some good flowing mufflers are hooker aerochamber or maximum flow, or magnaflow has some good ones...flowmaster sucks, stay away from them. dynomax ultraflos are rael good mufflers, and I think are offered in stainless too...

If you want all stainless front to back, your looking at like over a grand for exhaust here....hope you realize that

as far as headers, go with headman or hooker. and if you don't want rust, send them out to jet hot coated.

 

A single 3" exhaust will flow more than enough for your engine and will work fine even with additional mods, unless you're trying to build a 400HP monster.

True duals is too much of a hassle for the "gains" you will see from it. There is simply no where to put the piping without lowering your ground clearance on these cars. It will also be expensive, especially if you have to pass emissions. If you don't know how to weld, you can expect to pay some hefty labor charges since the person doing the work for you will be left scratching his head, trying to figure out how to fit the piping under the car.

I'm not trying to discourage you from going the true duals route, if that's what you want to do. I just think there will be much less hassle for just as good performance through a single 3" exhaust.

 

if it helps, i have duals, and if i were to do it again, i would have ran a single 3.5" or 4"...

Mike

 

Thanks a lot guys, you've provided a lot of useful info. I have a couple of new questions, so please bear with me.

First of all, is there any way to set up a poll to see who prefers true duals vs a single pipe? One of my concerns is that dual 2.5 exhaust will give me better ground clearance than a single 3.5. In the area where I live, ground clearance is critical. I'm hoping not to lose even a half an inch with my new exhaust set up.

Regarding passing emissions... I'm looking into purchasing the PROMinator. Would it be possible to program an ECM to kill my power but get me passing?

What do you guys mean by "dumping" the exhaust? Is that where the cutout will open up?

What are the benefits of a custom system vs. buying a package?

Is jet hot coating superior to stainless? I've heard some stories about some cermaic coatings falling off.

Also... does it make sense to get the whole system coated, or is that impossible/not feaseable?

Thanks again! Sorry for the million questions, I'm just trying to figure this thing out.

Happy Thanksgiving!

-Bill

 

Lot of Questions!!!...i'll try a few of them

check out my cardomain, i have what they call a longtube header into true 2.5" duals dumped before the rear axle. so dumps just mean that the exhaust is dumped underneath somewhere instead of out the back...

there is a way to do a poll, not sure how to do it tho

no idea on the passing emisions part of it, i don't have that around here so i'm not too up to date on that kind of stuff...

its almost gaurenteed you will have more ground clearance with a single 3.5" pipe than true duals...duals just hang low on our cars because there is no place to tuck them up into really. a single 3" should support up to 400 horse also, so if your not pushin anywhere close to that, you don't necessarily need a 3.5"..

I would say a prefabbed exhaust is better than a custom made exhaust just because they are proven and alot easier to install. It goes back to the crush vs mandrel bent too...there aren't many shops that have mandrel benders, because they are expensive. so you would have to get it all crush bent, that eqautes to terrible flowing capabilities...also you can rack up a pretty good bill with custom exhausts too.

I would say jet hot is better than stainless becuase its a ceramic coating designed to keep heat in. therefore all the heat stays in the exhaust, doesn't transfer to other parts of the car, and also its shiny ...but stainless is good too, which ever you wanna do, thats really up to you..they are both viable options...

it would probably not be very cost effective to do a whole system jet hotted, not only would it be a ludacris bill, but the gain is minimal. there is no point to have a completely jet hot coated system. you could however do a half and half if you have like a rust phobia or something. jet hot the headers and y pipe (if you go single exhaust) than use stainless on the rest...

 

klumb, thanks for the fast response!

Wow, I'm really suprized that one 3.5 inch pipe would give me greater clearance than 2.5 inch duals. Would the air flow be improved on a single 3.5 (vs a dual 2.5?)

If a 3 inch pipe will give me better flow than 2.5 inch duals, why do so many people go for dual exhaust?

It looks like I'm shooting for a 3 or 3.5 inch, mandrel bent, prefabbed exhaust. I definately want stainless for this. Any reccomendations? I'll also need a y-pipe.

Are any electric cutouts made in stainless? (or could this be jet hot coated?)

I was also checking out some of the headers, and apparently some people need to modify their cars to accomodate their headers. I definately want something that's more "plug and play" and doesn't require modifying my car.

I must be driving you guys nuts! lol

Also, if I get an out of the box system, what kinds of clearance issues will I run into if I want to upgrade my suspension with a panhard bar or something else down the line?

Thanks again,
Bill

 

a 3.5" flows i think almost identical to a dual 2.5" but with dual 2.5" you have more metal that equals more contact area for the exhaust to touch, which will cause minimal turbulence. So i would say you would have better flow with a 3.5" single...and thats without bends coming into play. to get duals to tuck up good, they have to be bent alot, causing alot of turbulence. I'm not sure what your plans are for horspower, but I'm sure 3" would support your setup...

also the single pipe will sit in the valley where the stock exhaust was, so it'll tuck up alot better than duals...like i said duals on our cars just goes underneath everything, its nothin special...

and aftermarket accessories like panhard bar etc etc should have no problem with aftermarket exhausts...i think exhaust companies think of that kind of stuff when building a system...

not to sure about SS catbacks...GMMG i think is stainless, sounds amazing...you can also modify a 4th gen to work also, you would have alot more options if you go that route...but I'll let somebody else chime in on this one, somebody out there knows more about this than i do as far as aftermarket exhaust systems go

but my final thought is go with a single 3" or 3.5"...if you go with anything bigger than 3", your gonna have to go with like a mufflex setup...not sure if they come in stainless or not tho...

 

I was going to go dual 2.5" with a H-pipe and wrap it most of the way back...until I decided I liked turbos. I'll probably just run straight pipes after the turbos to the rear of the car and see how loud it is.

 

Thought I'd add my thoughts about your questions.

As far as the reason people go for dual exhaust, that's probably because it will provide superior flow and (supposedly) better sound than a single exhaust system. However, on the f-body platform there is just no where to put it without sacrificing some ground clearance. The suspension is a huge obstacle to deal with, especially when an H- or X-pipe is added into the equation.

A factory-style 3" exhaust should probably hook right up where the stock exhaust hooks up. As long as it's 3" or larger, you pretty much have your choice as far as what manufacturer to go with. Differences in performance will most likely be neglible between two different brands, and you certainly won't notice it when you are driving. I would personally recommend Hooker, but that's because I don't like that sound of Flowmasters and Hooker is also reasonably priced.

You said that you don't want to buy headers that will force you to modify the car. The bad news about that is almost every set of headers will require you to modify something in the engine bay unless you have an application specific car such as a 86-90 305/350 TPI. The good news is that it's almost nothing that you will notice or care about once you do install them. On my Hooker 2055s, I had to remove the A/C bracket because one of the arms sits over the exhaust manifold when stock, and adding the headers made it impossible for the bracket's arm to clear. I was lazy and just left it off, but if you really want it on there all you have to do is cut the arm off which is extremely easy. Other than that, there was no modification necessary to install the headers. I didn't even have to jack the motor up as the instructions indicated--the headers just slipped right in on either side from the top.

Speaking of headers, you might want to take a look at the sticky at the top of the page. You definately don't want to buy a set that is specific to your engine if you have a carb'd or TBI f-body. I would also stay away from the Edelbrocks because they squish the primarys together at the collector for some reason. Most of the other headers have full diameter primaries but Edelbrock is the only company I have seen mash the primaries together like that. You'll also want to stay away from Flowtechs, they are extremely low quality peices and numerous members have reported that the flanges are warped out of the box, causing them to leak. Some people may suggest to you that you will need Stage 8 locking bolts for the headers, but as long as you make sure to re-tighten the bolts every few days after you install the headers, you can use the bolts that came with the headers. It's not really that hard to do anyway, and you'll especially agree with this once you do install the headers.

Finally, I got my Hooker 2055s Jet-Hot coated and I would recommend that anyone considering purchasing headers get this done as well. Even with the ceramic coating, I noticed that the temperature guage rises slightly higher than it did with the stock manifolds (although this is no big deal). I can only imagine how much hotter it would be under the hood of the car with uncoated headers. My friend also has a Z28 with Hedman longtubes and for a while, he was battling problems with overheating. Although he did have a problem with one of the fan relays, it definately got extremely hot under his car's hood.

As far as clearance issues with upgraded suspension, I don't see this being a major concern. Most of Spohn's equipment works better than the stock peices and fits in the exact same way, albeit a lot of the parts are adjustable. Like I said, probably nothing to worry about at this point.

Hope that answers some of your questions.

 

Allright, so I'm going with a 3.5 inch exhaust! The problem is, I've only been able to find 3 inch systems. Any reccomendations? Spohn has a couple of 3 inch set ups on his site.

Shorty headers vs longtube?

Any other suggestions besides Hooker 2055s Jet-Hot coated? (How do I go about relocating the AC)

How about these?

http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs/store...0605&langId=-1

 

Go to the group purchase board if your interested in the Hooker 2055s. They are cheaper than Summit,Jegs etc and have a better coating and warranty. Since his car is mainly a stock 350,does anyone think that anything over 3" is overkill?

 

Well, my car will be upgraded down the road. So, I'd rather get as good of an exhaust as I can up front. (Rather than have to upgrade from 3 to 3.5 down the road.)

Any fitment issues with the Hooker exhaust?

Thanks!
Bill

 

One more thing is that dual cats is better than a single cat. I have the 3.5" Mufflex system on my car and it has plenty of clearance. With the dual cats and the Magnaflow 12909 muffler it is on the quiet side.

 

i have flowmaster 3" cat back, custom y, and took my cats off for 1 3" pipe back.

 

If they still make it Bank's system was all stainless and about the samw money as Hookers 3". I heard that it is no longer available, don't know if that is true.

 

i would say get the 2055 hookers with 3inch magnaflow cat through 3inch spintech like my setup i love it sounds clean i have a sound clip if u want but i have a 383 with a bigger cam.

 

I'd like to hear that sound clip....

 

By better, do you mean it has more flow? Any ideas where to purchase the mufflex system? rust issues?

Wow, a cheap stainless system. Does anyone know anything about this? Anywhere I can pick one up? How's the flow on it?

Oh and one more thing, if I go LSX down the road, will I be able to keep this exhaust? (except for the headers of course)

Thanks again guys!

 

Yes more flow. A good flowing ceramic substrate catalytic coverter flows around 400 cfm. Figuring 2.2 cfm per horsepower a single cat will support 182 horsepower without restriction or 100% efficiency. Dual cats will support 364 horsepower without restiction.

As you increase flow through these cats the efficiency goes down. Now there are metalic substrate cats on the market with more on the way that will flow 600 cfm per cat. With two these they will support 545 horsepower with 100% efficiency. That is what I'm going to install on my car with the next rebuild.

 

i wish i had a better sound clip i wont be able to take another clip until about two months when my white iroc is out of the shop. here you go it is just in park at idle. http://media.putfile.com/short-idle-clip

 

Do I need a dual exhaust to have dual cats? I was really hoping on a single 3.5 inch system.

What exactly are the cats for anyway? Are they purely emissions, or do they muffle the sound as well? Will I need to get a muffler?

 

You can run dual cats only if the Y-Pipe is after the cats on the system.

Cats are an emissions device, although they do muffle the sound slightly you will still need a muffler farther down the line.

 

Does anyone know of any setups like that in stainless steel and 3.5 inches that dont kill ground clearance under the car?