Going to Upgrade Exhaust System

MonsterMark

MonsterMark

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Well, I think I am going to upgrade my '98. I guess I can't drive a stock vehicle for a long time. First up, I am going to add some breathing, starting with the exhaust.

I have heard alot of guys like the UltraFlow's. I am probably going to leave the stock exhaust for now until I do some engine work.

Any opinions on the perfect mufflers?
 
I dunno about perfect... but DynaMax UltraFlows are pretty good.
exhaust2.jpg


Sounds great, esp. @ WOT!!!
:L
 
My '98 LSC does, although I would still not call it a true dual exhaust running thru the 3rd cat.
 
MonsterMark said:
Well, I think I am going to upgrade my '98. I guess I can't drive a stock vehicle for a long time. First up, I am going to add some breathing, starting with the exhaust.

I have heard alot of guys like the UltraFlow's. I am probably going to leave the stock exhaust for now until I do some engine work.

Any opinions on the perfect mufflers?
Click to expand...


IMHO.....These are the best for our cars. They might be a bit more spensive than Maggotflows or UltraFlow's, but they are awesome. They are the same ones that Bill Hamilton has on his car (the 'TV dinner' ones he has refered to them as). I recently had a set for sale. On Bill H's car they sounded AWESOME. I mean I am a bit partial to the exhaust on my car (I like it LOUD and obnoxious......not as bad as Petey's firebird), but if I wanted something that was not SO much in your face, I would go with the mufflers on that link I provided above. Here is a few pix of what they look like (used of course!):

mufflers.jpg

mufflers1.jpg
 
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I loved the sound of Bills car but I am not at all sold on the looks. Looking for more suggestions.
 
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I do not like the looks myself, but you can BARELY see them normally, unless you lean down to see them. They can tuck WAY up, so as to not see them.
 
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Joeychgo said:
what are the benefits to changing the exhaust?
Click to expand...

The main thing is performance.....then comes sound....but only if you do the whole exhaust. You can make the car sound better with just the changing of the mufflers, but if you want the whole deal, you need to do the whole exhaust. What I mean by the 'whole' exhaust is the removal of the third cat and having TRUE dual exhaust (one OR two x-pipes....your preference) bigger pipes (2.5 inch) and better mufflers.
 
Joeychgo said:
what does that do for your emmissions?
Click to expand...
Well...you have to take into account that most of our cars are like close to 10 years old, and have a decent amount of miles on them. I know that not all of us have higher mileage cars, some are very low, but they are still old....so is the exhaust systems....and VERY restrictive (trying to keep the 'grandpa' persona). I am not totally sure, but with my truck, I took the cat off all together, and the truck was cleaner than when it was on.....since the truck had SO many miles on it, the cat was needing a replacement. With our cars we have 3 cats, 2 HUGE by HUGE mufflers, and a silencer. Now look at the Cobra......almost none of that...they only have 2 cats, and 2 mufflers...same engine....why would it not run just as clean without the third cat? That is how I look at it, but I am not totally sure if it will change the emissions or not....I am sure it will in some respects, but if your other cats are fine, it should not lower them enuf for it not to pass.

Hope that helps!
 
Joeychgo said:
whats a ball park $$$ for replacing the exhaust?
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$500-$600 plus labor for a full 2-1/2" cat-back with single-X, mufflers and tips. Stainless steel tubing will add at least $200. The mufflers will be $80-$120 each for a typical name brand performance muffler, but you could easily double that with more exotic mufflers.
 
I'm looking to "hear" the car right now. Simple swap of mufflers.

On the '98, the exhaust is true dual except I don't know about the 3rd cat. I have never seen one taken apart. My guess is it acts like an x-pipe and balances pulses. Therefore, I would say it is a true dual from that perspective. There is no resonator unless they are built into the pipes just behind the manifold cats.

I see absolutely no reason to mess with the exhaust except to maybe remove the 3rd cat, but I have seen no numbers on the flow capacity of the 3rd cat vs and X-pipe so I think it would be a waste of money.

If I do anything to the exhaust it will be to remove the stock manifolds which appear to be the most restrictive part of the system.

Hence my desire to replace the mufflers only. Just make it sound like it has more balls at this point.
 
I've neaver looked under a mark 8 but my old 91 5.0 t-bird had a fake dual where it was 2 went to 1 after the 1st set of cats then went thru another cat then back to 2. The thing I learned later was sometime that "cat or muffler" is actually simply a resonator. If its a resonator, don't worry about removing it it's just a bit of extra noise but with already having cats and mufflers it will still be fine. If it actually is a cat its shot by now anyways enviormentally most likely and outfitting your car with (2) 3-way cats is going to filter out the same contaminats as (2) 2 way cats and the 1 way cat.
 
I put 18" glasspaks on my car as a "temporary solution", and after a couple weeks of burning them in, they sound sweet. It sounded ok at first, with no cackle, but now it sounds sweet without being obnoxious.

Under acceleration it sounds just great, as long as the motor is loaded down, meaning:

If you rev it in park or downshift manually over like 4 grand it will cackle, but if you don't rev it over 4k it sounds good, and you don't need to downshift your car at 4k. There isn't much of a drone like people will lead you to believe.

For $75 you can't beat it.... you just can't. I'm glad I didn't drop a couple big bills on exhaust now, and I was planning on it anyway, but I've decided these are staying on here till I drop some REALLY big bills on a full exhaust.

To get a little louder on a straight chop and replace exhaust, this is it.
I'll try to get some sound clips of my '98 LSC if you're interested.
Better yet, take my word on it, you'll agree it's $ well spent.
 
$350 in Labor and Pipes. (Manderal Bent)

$140 Flowmaster 40s
$75 X-pipe
$55 3" Tips
$100 Catz, which was never sent!

This is for M7 though!
 
sound clips!!!!! SWeeeeeeeeeeet yes.!!!

anyone else, sound clips rock!!
 
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