Exhaust.....are you kidding me.......

Well been a bad week for the wagon, blew out a tire on tuesday, and sat night, I picked up a huge exhaust leak.....

So since I have not decided on which route to take on the motor yet, I think I am going to go ahead and order long tube headers and convert my old 2.25 dual exhaust to the single 2.5

Question I have is, with running the single, how will sound be with my flowmasters? I wanted something throaty, I know I will pick up a deeper sound with the larger pipe, but will I get a bunch of drone?

I have never ran a single before, I have always converted stuff to duals, but I hear the cost can get out of control with the duals on this thing.

I am not going for performance with the exhaust yet, since I will most likely run a cut out when I do that, but I figured I could swap the headers over if I swap in a 350, and they are a cheap 150 bucks......

So if you guys have any experience or advise for me please feel free

NOTE : It is my 91 Carpice Wagon with the 305 TBI

 

headers are a pain!!!....and especially the shorties...they are more trouble than they are worth...for the small bit of preformance they give you!!
and long tubes hang low generally!

so unless your planning on doing a whole lot of other 'perf' stuff stick with your manifolds...you'l thank me later

hey...i sell the stuff...and thats my 2 bits....i may owe you change

 

Yeah well, I mean I just installed headers on a 2v mustang this past weekend, so I can understand pain.....that was only a 22 hour job the first time I did it.....

Dropping the K-member and lowering the motor....what a pain!!!

Well I guess I will save my monies then, I mean this is not the motor I will be using, but I have thought about a 383, vortec 350, and a LS1, I know for a fact they will not work for the LSx, but I think they should for the other 2, but I could be wrong, if they will not fit the votrec motors, I am not going to do it!

 

Uh, why the heck would you want to do that? The two 2.25" pipes have 7.95 sq in of cross section area. A single 2.5" pipe has 4.9 sq in. You'd be significantly restricting the exhaust flow. Does you engine have too much power now?:confused:

 

I dont want to pay to put duals in when i am just going to re-do it later. Oh and with my stock 170 hp....I doubt that I will have flow problems...

 

Patch up what you have if you can, Amp. I can't see going with a single when you are putting headers on! AND....long tubes for 150 bucks???? The long tubes that fit my wagon are $1000! And that's not SS or coated. I know what it's like to not have the bucks when you need them but....you will just be throwing your money away now when you install duals later. And yes....it WILL restrict your low hp engine. You are putting headers on for flow and then cutting off the flow. If there is any way to weld or somehow patch it up ... go that way for now.

 

A-P

IMHO, considering you are going to swap out the engine, the most cost effective thing to do is go to a muff shop and tell them this is an interim step till you decide what to do with the power plant and you want to save as much of what you have now as possible. If these guys turn out to be good then you know who to go back to when you do the engine swap out. And tell them that - you may just get an even better deal that way if you are really intending to go back.

You could check the wreckers to see if they have one off a car that is in decent shape. Just a thought.

As for going down to a single exhaust, well, I suppose you could. Oh sure, people will point and snicker as you drive by and old ladies in Kia's will beat you at the lights, but hey, it's up to you :banghead3:

 

Well after sleeping on it last night and realizing I might have to notch some stuff, I think unless I have a crack in a mani, I am just going to fix the trouble areas.....

I am more upset at the fact that the dingle hooper who had the car before me decided to run 2.25 exhaust instead of the 2.5......silly dude! Why pay for all that with out getting all the potential

I was just going to do the headers while I was under there, I mean I could always use the piping that is there now I guess.....

I was really asking for drone sound, I mean I am going to run a cutout once I do the swap, so flow is not an issue lol.....I will have pleanty

 

I put flowmasters on the Safari wagon and it sounded just great. Then we headed down the highway. At 65 you couldn't hear the stereo (mind you, I also couldn't hear my wife so maybe......) so that ended that. We changed to dynaflow and the car still sounds good but without the inside of the car drone. I know there are different types of F-M's so someone may have knowledge of one that is not too prone to the drone factor, but I believe mine were 40's????? I don't know why that comes to mind.

 

I have Flow Masters on the Cappy....don't know which ones....no drone inside the car. Not too loud but you hear a soft growl outside the car.

 

You GM guys and your rumble boxes. Ha!

Just before I blew my 302 V8, by dropping a bolt in the carby, idling in my backyard , I had just had a new exhaust and brakes all redone. 2.5" stock single exhaust. The donor car owner had just had his done before the drunk lady backed into his 6-cylinder Fairmont in a parking lot and crushed the car halfway into the trunk (it was a serious rust bucket). I left mine in, and used the manifold to exhaust pipe (the 1978's didn't have the catalytic box).

Once I got the car all restored, with a lot of help from Andy's fine tuning handiwork, I gave him the keys for the first ride. He was blown away. She rumbles like a V8 at idle, and purrs down the road like a Lincoln, with just a hint that there's more than 85 HP under the hood. So there!

I think the muffler shop cheated and put a shorter than stock, standard muffler on mine, because the donor car's muffler was longer, but narrower, by about 2" on length, and 1.5" narrower. Anyway, the I6 pipes are supposed to be 2" diameter, not 2.5". No inside headache noise.

 

One thing to keep in mind with my comments is that my car was built at a time when road, engine and other noises inside the car were less of an issue. The cars of the 90's through to current are much more considerate of creature comforts and that includes shutting out the noise. What would be a loud annoyance in my old wagon would probably not even be heard in a much newer vehicle. After the muff swap I got thinking about the big back open noise generator and installed a panel that sits at the base of the side and back window and lines up just below the top of the back seat. In essence creating a trunk. It works really well but I didn't think to make it so it would lift up so that will happen this summer so access to things that are up against the back seat are easier to find and reach. Here's a picture of what I did....

 

Tada! Great minds think alike, Saf57. My latest tweak to making mine into a FairStang was the dash swap, then I discovered that the rear seats and cargo cover from a hatchback Mustang bolt right in. It recoils from the gate opening back to the rear side of the wheel well. Not a complete cover like yours, but definitely a noise buster.



The Mustang hatchback fold-down seatbacks will get the chocolate backseat upholstery from the latest 'upgrade':


And I'll change the cargo carpetting to a new chunk that matches the one from the front.

 

Geez, that looks really good. I really like what you've done with your car. Hmmmmmm, I may need to go hit a wrecker and see what else they have.When I grenaded our 2002 Trail Blazer I kept the cargo cover but it has zero insulating qualities, it just covers the stuff in the back. One of those retractable covers that I thought I might try just to see how it looks. I'll need to trim it to fit. It is a medium grey (gray for our US readers) and it might be an optional thing depending on where we are traveling to. I've been thinking about later style seat set up for the back where I can fold down one side if needed and still accommodate three passengers in comfort. This is great. Thanks,
Barry

 

Do you remember the Impala convertible/hardtop seats with the speaker in the backrest (circa 1959 to 1964)? The reardeck was molded plastic IIRC. I'm pretty sure the two backrest sections were just connected by the steel wire frame. You'd just need the hinge setup from yours or a front bench seat in a pickup. The grey/gray is a nice neutral colour too. I have to dye my cover and hardware. I don't think Mustangs came with brown interiors. And I don't want black. Now those chrome floor rails in yours would be nice, except that my tire well has to be accessible in the floor.