3" exhaust system getting installed . . .

I never had a problem with drone in my Maverick or in one of my Mustangs that didnt have an X or H pipe. Is it a coincedence I would lose a little Hp if it meant no drone.

 

ok heres why mo and i decided to keep his current 2.25" turbo mufflers. his 331 is low compression so it benifits from the small restrictive muffler for street use and mo does alot of street driving. he also doesnt like the loud sound of flowmasters or streight through mufflers. the x-pipe has cut outs on it so when he goes to the track he can uncork it and have full free flow and the loud roar of exhast.

 

I would guess the x pipe and cooling (shrinking) exhaust gases will compensate for the smaller mufflers. Might even flow better that way. It is still a relativly small displacement engine. How much rpm will it spin?

No subframe connecters?

 

I cured my 2000rpm drone on my 5.0 by tossing the flowmasters and welding in Hooker aerochambers http://www.summitracing.com/parts/HOK-21502HKR/ it still has the "five oh" sound, but much more mellow around town.

 

I know, I actually just bought the right metal I need to make that. My welding skills are now sub-par (you don't want to know what they were before) so I'm ready to weld them up soon.

 

Got the car parked in bryant's garage at 8:30a and after making coffee we got started. If Bryant didn't help me it wouldn't have been done on time, we finished at 530p.

Took off the plug wires, took out the plugs which was all pretty easy. Then undid the bolts of the current headers.





We had to remove the valve covers since they are pretty tall, but that wasn't hard to do.


Jacked up the car, took out the collector bolts and out came the driver side header. Took out the engine mount bolt on the passenger side and loosened the driver's side and jacked up the engine under the oil pan just a little and the driver's side header came out real easy.





Here is the side-by-side


Bryant started on cutting up the old exhaust system.


Back on top we bolted up the new headers. Problem was after getting them both on Bryant's side ended up having one of the holes not properly machined so we had to get the car back up and remove the header and drill out the hole a little better.




Finally though got the engine bay pretty much all buttoned up. I know, it's a no-no to put something up on top of the carb but hey, I wasn't thinking straight.


Looks pretty from the bottom doesn't it? And we started it, SOUNDED SO NICE.


Layed out the parts but you know, we ended up not even using the straight tubes. Gonna show you the approximate cuts we made so you can see by comparison.







We made some cuts as you can see, one side had to be cut a little shorter since the driver's side header is tilted a little more than the other side.



We put the pre bent pipes into the x-pipe and mocked them up.


We used the welder to put some tacks on for now.


We did have to make 3 trips to the exhaust shop to have the openings widened after we made the cuts. We also used the stock mufflers and the part of the stock tubing which we also had to have expanded on the ends to fit up to the 3" exhaust.

Here is what it looks like.




The welding took a little time to get right. I had to play around with the speed and the power level but I think I finally got the hang of it.

Doesn't it look awesome?




Really came out nice. It really isn't sitting much lower than the long tube headers. Sounds great too.

 

It looks great but aren't the cutouts on backwards?

 

nevermind I looked at it wrong for some reason

 

Maybe you were thinking why they are installed after the xpipe. I guess some install it before the xpipe but we chose this way thinking even with open headers we would get some power from the xpipe.

 

awesome install and pics

 

Ditto!

 

Awesome, now we need a sound video... Oh and summit has there electric cutouts on sale this month, that would be a fun little toy to have....

 

That exhaust looks HUGE! Good job, I bet it sounds awesome!

Are those Dynomax Super Turbo mufflers? They look the same as mine.

 

I don't actually know what mufflers I have. I don't even remember now where I got them and when, loooong time ago but I know they were super cheap.

So this morning I started the car and it sounds AWESOME. I don't have any problems with drone in the car even though I have dumps. There is a problem with the steering turning left, hits the exhaust a little but that's the same thing with my old headers, nothing major since I can still turn.

 

So how would you describe the way the x-pipe changed the sound, at idle and under acceleration? Id like to see [hear] a before and after video clip.