I have a friend that says he can get me custom pipes all the way back from my exhaust manifolds, hooked up to dual glasspacks, and out for around $200. I can get a catback, minus the converter, for like $150..a Dynomax Super-Turbo. I figure the glasspack setup is going to be louder, possibly sound nicer...here's the technical part though, which one will make more power? "Duh" thinking makes me say the glasspacks thing but I dunno, airflow works in strange ways.. I'm up for either..but now that I got that ghetto intake, I need to get the air out too! Thanks guys.

 

On our v6's the catback system has been proven to work better. Apparently our motors need some backpressure to maintain decent performance

 

The pipes on the Dynomax system will also be mandrel bent. Wherever your friend gets this other system from, probably won't have a $40,000 mandrel bending machine, and will probably bend the pipes with crimps. Is he talking about a true dual exhaust? I wouldn't bother- even the V8 guys making over twice as much HP as we do are running a single exhaust. On a larger motor, you might see more of an increase in HP- but on our V6's, you might see what, 1 or 2 extra HP? For all that $$ and work?

Also, your friend said he can get it; is this true? I've heard many people tell me that I should've bought one- but they have no idea that there is no such thing as an aftermarket true dual. he might just figure that since it's a Firebird or Camaro, there must be somewhere to get a true dual from. It's an easy find for, say, a '75 Nova, so it would make sense to be an easy find for an 82-92 f-body. Too bad it isn't.

 

Ok, sounds like the catback wins here. Tom, the setup my friend told me about is just done at the local auto shop..they bend everything themselves and hook it all up, and I'm 90% sure the piping IS crimp bent for it. He gave me the impression that it's true dual...but like you said and I already heard, doesn't do **** for our cars. Thanks as usual. By the way..we should all form a union, all of us 3rd gen F-Body guys, and force the companies to give us some g*d d*mned performance parts! I mean, the LEAST they could do is make us some nice headers!!! :rockon:

 

No problem, let us know what you finally decide to go with! Hey, I found a diagram that shows crimped vs mandrel bent:

http://www.certifiedmuffler.com/services.htm

Hey, cool, I also found a mini mandrel bender! http://www.irvansmith.com/catalog2/p...g_bender.shtml It's cheap enough, maybe I'll buy two, one as a spare! I was trying to find one of the "big" machines that a shop would have, but can't find a price online. Oh well.

 

Very nice..thank you as usual. And I definitely see the differences between crimped and mandrel bent...I checked my friend's out, it's crimped..like 2 90 degree crimps from start to finish on it because it's side exhaust. And Tom...you call $1200 cheap?? Granted, I'm sure it's cheap for a mandrel bender..but...damn!