mandrel bent tubing vs. regular...
I guess most muffler shops would rather put their money into doing regular mechanic work, than to just specialize in exhaust, all we do is exhaust, whereas your meineke's and midas's and most other exhaust shops are doing all kinds of repair work now that most exhaust systems are stainless steel & regular exhaust business has dropped off
I've gone to unitedexhaust in Port Jeff and they did a nice job on my custom Y pipe. I would never even consider a midas or meineke.
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From: south jersey. again
I guess most muffler shops would rather put their money into doing regular mechanic work, than to just specialize in exhaust, all we do is exhaust, whereas your meineke's and midas's and most other exhaust shops are doing all kinds of repair work now that most exhaust systems are stainless steel & regular exhaust business has dropped off
i have never seen so many repair shops or tire stores in the same area like here in florida. every strip mall has a shop in it. i need some exhaust work done but i still havent decided on anything yet.
Joined: Nov 2003
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From: Wichita KS / Rancho San Diego
I guess most muffler shops would rather put their money into doing regular mechanic work, than to just specialize in exhaust, all we do is exhaust, whereas your meineke's and midas's and most other exhaust shops are doing all kinds of repair work now that most exhaust systems are stainless steel & regular exhaust business has dropped off
So the result is that this is a speciality business and shops like yours are few and far between.
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From: OHIO
We have a shop here in Ohio, Stainless Works but they are REALLY expensive. I spoke to them about a trueduel exhaust and they were in the neighborhood of $1500.00 and like $600-$700 for a new y-pipe! F-THAT!
haha holy ****, see the mandrel bender guys are so expensive, thats what made me think if i switch to regular bends an only lose liek 4-5 hp i wouldnt care cause thats not that noticeable but i dont want to lose tons of hp. so i guess my only option is to turn my exhaust into dumps = /
This is why most guys install cutouts. Crush bends will be fine and save you a ton of money. Dumps will be really loud inside your car and smell like gas all the time. Just install some cutouts so you can open them up when you feel like going faster (5-10 hp).
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Verdad Gallardo TECH Enthusiast
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From: south jersey. again
sounds like this guy thought he was doing you a favor. he lost a sale and probally future sales from word of mouth. some people try to make money all in one shot.
There's more to it than the $50,000, like I said $175,000 in dies, you have to have one set of dies for aluminized pipe and another set of bronze for stainless steel, then you need a different mandrel for every thickness. One for .049, one for .065 etc. On top of that you have to be a very good bender operator to make the system look good, because mandrel bending is way different than press bending. We are on Long Island and now that Kook's has moved down south, there are only 2 shops on the whole island that have a mandrel machine, out of a thousand muffler shops, just 2 have a mandrel bender. As a matter of fact there are not very many in the whole northeast. I uploaded a couple of photos of a older big block camaro with 3 inch mandrel exhaust, x pipe and Flowmasters, we flanged the mufflers so it can be taken apart.
Are the dies a real p.i.a. to change out?
Reason I ask is....a few years back I made a three hour trip to an exhaust shop (closest one w/ a mandrel bender, had an appt and told them what I was looking to have done also) to have a custom 3" system fabbed up for my Blazer, only to have them tell me when I got there that they had a 2.5" die installed on their machine and it would take too long to change out. I figured they were just being lazy, and since I was willing to drop some good money on this system it was darn well going to be what I originally came for. I politely informed them of all this and they still refused to change out the die, so I just took my business elsewhere. A few weeks later I finally found a shop that was more than happy from the get-go to install what I asked for.
hmmm thats a good idea, 2 cut outs and have him make me true duals w crush bends, but maybe put some longer glasspacks on to quiet it down a little so when i shut the cut out if im near a cop, thanks
I love the way mine is setup. Headers, custom Y pipe with no cats, cutout, factory slp dual dual muffler very quiet around town until I get on it. I open the cutout at the track and on the dyno I gained around 15hp with my cutout open, usually worth 1-2 mph. The cutout is way to loud to keep open around town, pretty annoying actually, it makes everything rattle inside.
Cutout closed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vbo6w0SWaU
Cutout open
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed8s0ovoQDU
Cutout closed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vbo6w0SWaU
Cutout open
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed8s0ovoQDU
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It takes us about 3 hours to change the mandrel bender over to a different size, between cleaning the lube off the size that's in the machine to making the adjustments to make the bends nice is about 3 hours. Sometimes it takes 2 to 3 days for us to make a perfect dual exhaust with x pipe and flanging the mufflers & our workers are getting $20 an hour, if you look at it like that $1200 to $1400 for a perfect job is not that outrageous. Every time we turn around these companies are raising their prices, some of the flowmasters we buy are close to $200.
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From: Turnin' Wrenches Infractions: 005
1400 for duals? You could buy a welder, all the pipe and mufflers, then buy pre-bent mandrel sections or a premade universal kit and still come out way cheaper then that. I would assume there aren't many 1400 dollar dual exhaust systems running around.
