My Budget Exhaust (with track results)
11-16-2010, 02:21 PM
#1
My Budget Exhaust (with track results) Since I finally got my exhaust squared away I figured I'd share my experience. My goals were to have a good flowing exhaust system, minimal comprimises, and cheap. I'm not going to mention what I paid for each piece because of the stickies ask me not to but I will list a final price for what I have into everything.
Headers:
Let me start off by saying I've owned painted, coated, and stainless steel headers. I hate rusty looking headers and ALL coated headers I've owned didn't last but a couple years so stainless steel was my preference. But as you know stainless steel headers are pricey. So I took the Ebay route. I searched the ebay header threads for people who've had good luck and asked who they bought from. There was a store that I heard a few times from those guys and the feedback rating was pretty high so I pulled the trigger. The headers showed up on my door step a few days later and looked very very good for the price. The welds were solid and the bends didn't look too bad either. One big difference between these and my old mainstream stainless headers was the weight. These were made with very THIN stainless and felt much lighter and thus less durable. I wouldn't want to drop these things from any distance onto a hard surface for fear of denting the primaries. But hey, once they're installed unless I go off roading nothing's going to knock against them. They also had the emissions provissions which I didn't want. I took them to the only local stainless steel welder I knew of. He charged me $60 to remove the emissions provisions and to weld up the holes (I know block off plates are cheaper but this looks MUCH cleaner IMO). The install was a breeze, just as easy as the other LT header installs I've done on these cars. Clearance was a little tight on the driver's side but a little grinding and poly motor mounts make sure you have plenty of room.
Y-pipe:
This one was tricky. My headers had the same notorious upward bend on the driver's side collector so anything I would go with would need work to fit. I looked for a y-pipe with a decent merge that wouldn't break the bank. I went with a new TSP ORY for two reasons:
1. It was cheap
2. The new merge looked good
When I got my ORY I decided to try to test fit the pipes to see just how hard a job the exhaust shop was going to have. The passenger side, to my surprise, actually fit no problem. But the drivers side collector was angled upward so bad I couldn't even fit the intermediate piece on it. It looked like the y-pipe there needed to be angled downward about 15* to clear the floor board. You can see the bend needed in the pics below. I ended up taking it to the exhaust shop and had them make it fit. They also threw a bitch fit because there were no cats so I had them weld up cats. Not that big of a deal really, it'll make inspection easier and cut rasp.
Catback:
I'm using a manual cutout with a bone stock intermediate pipe and a Hooker Aerochamber muffler. At part throttle it sounds just like stock. And I don't mean it's quieter than it should be for a LT header car, I'm mean it sounds STOCK. If you heard it you would never guess it had an aftermarket muffler, let alone full exhaust. But if I go WOT it gets pretty rowdy. Which is perfect for me because I park in a parking garage and live in a very quite peaceful neighborhood were loud cars are not appreciated. When I feel like losing a little bit of hearing I open up the cutout and it turns into a completely different beast
Price:
This is what made this exhaust so attractive to me. My grand total price for this setup was $655. I also sold my stock CATS for $110 at a recycler so my out of pocket for NEW stainless steel headers, NEW cat'd y-pipe, band clamps, gaskets, and y-pipe installation was $545.
This isn't the cheapest exhaust you can buy but keep in mind it includes new parts. I even included the shipping on the y-pipe, cutout, and headers. Best of all I didn't really find killer deals on any of the parts. If someone wanted to build a similar exhaust setup and they know a reasonable exhaust shop, they would be paying about the same thing. If I didn't have to have cats I could've cut $100 more off the price. And if I didn't mind emissions block off plates that would've knocked the price down another $60 as well. So if I would've went with just ORY with blockoff plates I would've paid under $400, all inclusive.
Results:
My car when I got it had 75k miles on it. With a lid, LS6 intake and Aerochamber muffler it ran:
9.3 at 79MPH ~2400DA with a 2.27 60'
After I finished my exhaust I ran a best of :
8.4 at 86MPH ~1800DA with a 1.97 60' (cutout closed)
All said and done I upped my 1/8th trap speed by 7MPH. Because I dropped .3 off my 60' the ET is a little misleading but still there were huge gains there. Not saying this is a normal gain, but just goes to show that my exhaust is flowing pretty damn well to pickup that much.
Headers:
Let me start off by saying I've owned painted, coated, and stainless steel headers. I hate rusty looking headers and ALL coated headers I've owned didn't last but a couple years so stainless steel was my preference. But as you know stainless steel headers are pricey. So I took the Ebay route. I searched the ebay header threads for people who've had good luck and asked who they bought from. There was a store that I heard a few times from those guys and the feedback rating was pretty high so I pulled the trigger. The headers showed up on my door step a few days later and looked very very good for the price. The welds were solid and the bends didn't look too bad either. One big difference between these and my old mainstream stainless headers was the weight. These were made with very THIN stainless and felt much lighter and thus less durable. I wouldn't want to drop these things from any distance onto a hard surface for fear of denting the primaries. But hey, once they're installed unless I go off roading nothing's going to knock against them. They also had the emissions provissions which I didn't want. I took them to the only local stainless steel welder I knew of. He charged me $60 to remove the emissions provisions and to weld up the holes (I know block off plates are cheaper but this looks MUCH cleaner IMO). The install was a breeze, just as easy as the other LT header installs I've done on these cars. Clearance was a little tight on the driver's side but a little grinding and poly motor mounts make sure you have plenty of room.
Y-pipe:
This one was tricky. My headers had the same notorious upward bend on the driver's side collector so anything I would go with would need work to fit. I looked for a y-pipe with a decent merge that wouldn't break the bank. I went with a new TSP ORY for two reasons:
1. It was cheap
2. The new merge looked good
When I got my ORY I decided to try to test fit the pipes to see just how hard a job the exhaust shop was going to have. The passenger side, to my surprise, actually fit no problem. But the drivers side collector was angled upward so bad I couldn't even fit the intermediate piece on it. It looked like the y-pipe there needed to be angled downward about 15* to clear the floor board. You can see the bend needed in the pics below. I ended up taking it to the exhaust shop and had them make it fit. They also threw a bitch fit because there were no cats so I had them weld up cats. Not that big of a deal really, it'll make inspection easier and cut rasp.
Catback:
I'm using a manual cutout with a bone stock intermediate pipe and a Hooker Aerochamber muffler. At part throttle it sounds just like stock. And I don't mean it's quieter than it should be for a LT header car, I'm mean it sounds STOCK. If you heard it you would never guess it had an aftermarket muffler, let alone full exhaust. But if I go WOT it gets pretty rowdy. Which is perfect for me because I park in a parking garage and live in a very quite peaceful neighborhood were loud cars are not appreciated. When I feel like losing a little bit of hearing I open up the cutout and it turns into a completely different beast
Price:
This is what made this exhaust so attractive to me. My grand total price for this setup was $655. I also sold my stock CATS for $110 at a recycler so my out of pocket for NEW stainless steel headers, NEW cat'd y-pipe, band clamps, gaskets, and y-pipe installation was $545.
This isn't the cheapest exhaust you can buy but keep in mind it includes new parts. I even included the shipping on the y-pipe, cutout, and headers. Best of all I didn't really find killer deals on any of the parts. If someone wanted to build a similar exhaust setup and they know a reasonable exhaust shop, they would be paying about the same thing. If I didn't have to have cats I could've cut $100 more off the price. And if I didn't mind emissions block off plates that would've knocked the price down another $60 as well. So if I would've went with just ORY with blockoff plates I would've paid under $400, all inclusive.
Results:
My car when I got it had 75k miles on it. With a lid, LS6 intake and Aerochamber muffler it ran:
9.3 at 79MPH ~2400DA with a 2.27 60'
After I finished my exhaust I ran a best of :
8.4 at 86MPH ~1800DA with a 1.97 60' (cutout closed)
All said and done I upped my 1/8th trap speed by 7MPH. Because I dropped .3 off my 60' the ET is a little misleading but still there were huge gains there. Not saying this is a normal gain, but just goes to show that my exhaust is flowing pretty damn well to pickup that much.
Last edited by Golf&GM; 11-16-2010 at 02:31 PM.
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11-16-2010, 05:31 PM
#8
https://ls1tech.com/forums/generatio...ease-read.html
Sorry guys, looks like the mods stay on top of this subject. I'd like to keep this open so I won't post a link or a price but just look at the seller's ratings and how they respond to negative feedback and you'll probably find a good one.
Sorry guys, looks like the mods stay on top of this subject. I'd like to keep this open so I won't post a link or a price but just look at the seller's ratings and how they respond to negative feedback and you'll probably find a good one.
how abt a video clip? i want to hear the hooker.
11-16-2010, 07:57 PM
#13
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I'm probably going to go the eBay header route hooked up to the LPP Xpipe and be done with all of it for 600. That's before O2 extenders tho... It should sound good!
11-16-2010, 08:04 PM
#15
If you're looking to save a few more bucks you don't have to buy O2 extensions. I swapped a few pins in the PCM and plugged the 02s into the rear connectors. One of my old threads explains how to do it. Sounds intimidating but it's really very easy.
11-17-2010, 11:04 AM
#18
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I did a similar exhaust on an LT1 car. It was a set of ebay LTs/ORY at a cost of about $350, one Summit mandrel bend, one short length of 3 inch pipe and one flowsound single chamber muffler. Dumped it before the rear end, and total price was around $450.
