well its the time of the year when i park my Camaro and start turning wrenches. i recently found that i have an exhaust leak so im going to get a new system. i really like the sound of the magnaflow system and the dynomax system doesnt sound that bad either. what system do you guys think is better? im most likely going to set it up with a set of headers (undecided on what brand) and no cat (in ohio its historical and doesnt need one) also is there a way to bypass where the cat would be by welding in a straight pipe? all the work is being done by myself with supervision of my father.

Cody

 

im runing a magna flow with headers and i love the way it sounds.either one would sound good but to get the best sound you need headers and a cat bypass like you said.

 

what kind of headers are you running with? i was thinking about going with hooker 2055's but thats a big chunk of change. i was also thinking about just putting on a high flow cat so i can put actual plates on it if i needed to. decisions decisions.

 

Headman headers are not expensive, $150, for long tube, and are not that hard to fit up. An S pipe extension on each side, about $60, and then a transition pipe set to a Y pipe, 21/2" x 3" then 3" American Thunder pipe and muffler. The transition pipe is based upon what tranny you have. I measured it up on paper with a drawing and a local muffler shop made the pipes, they have to have a mandrel pipe bender for the angles, $60. (Finding the shop to do that is the hardest) I have a T56 and it fit up so well you cannot even see the LT flanges hanging down. Not too loud, free flowing straight run and can be done in your garage. The S pipe takes a weld fit up to match the mating flange to the LT with the S pipe. I always use stainless steel strap clamps rather then standard muffler clamps as they are strong, don't bend up your pipes and the pipes come apart easily every time. You also need to weld the O2 sensor on the passenger side LT.

 

cleanwater7 how is your ground clearance with long tubes? i really want to put long tubes with true duals but from what i have heard on our cars true duals are a pain in the butt and the ground clearance is terrible.

 

If you settle on shorties, do yourself a favor. Save a little longer and by the last set of headers you'll ever never for a SBC/3rdgen: a set of Dyno Dons.

 

I have never been excited about true duals particularly with the torque tube down the drivers side. My install of the Headman LT headers was without a problem and ground clearance is even better then shortys, which is what I took off. The shortys still direct both pipes to the passenger side and then back to the middle because they incorporate the dual cats. After I took the cats off, I had five feet of useless tubing so the LT was the next step. The Y pipe and 3" back to the muffler tucks up nice and neither the LT nor the pipe can be seen hanging down when you look from either side. From the rear you can see the 3" but it does not hang down as Y pipe is nicely supported at my tranny tail.

 

do you know what part # your Headman's are? my dad was talking about just taking it to the exhaust shop he sends his cars from work to (he works at a tranny shop) he says they do good work for a good price and have done a few true dual exhausts on these cars using both pipes down the stock exhaust route then one pipe has a 90 toward the driver side both mufflers then tips off the mufflers