What are folks doing for a tunnel brace? I have considered making one but I'm running without it now. I wonder if it even adds any strength to the chassis.

 

I tossed mine years ago. It doesnt appear to have ever made any appreciable difference.

 

If you are interested, Hooker offers a direct fit brace that was designed specifically to fit the Hooket Blackheart exhaust systems.

 

That's kind of what I was thinking.

Cool. Thanks for the heads up. I'll take a look at it.

 

Found it. Here's a link for anyone that's interested.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...uhGvl7vNNuZzMg

 

I picked up the Hooker floor/tunnel brace, being that I am a 'vert and want to keep any and all bracing that I can.

It's a very beefy and solid piece, I am happy with it. I'd like to give feedback on the fitment with the TD's and all, but it's currently sitting in the shipping box on my workbench. I am STILL awaiting my headers, which were ordered on 6/3. The estimated availability has been pushed back twice now.

 

Hang in there man. For what it's worth, there was more than one time during my install that I wish I had went with the Hooker mids. Something I didn't account for was thst there are no local shops near me that have a mandrel pipe bender. I'm happy with how my intall turned out but having the kit that is made for each other would have saved a lot of headache and frustration.

 

Thanks, man, and that's the hope - I don't have much free time, so even getting the whole Hooker system installed will be a challenge.

 

Im looking at this again after seeing that its not hard to modify to existing LT...The main reason im wanting a new exhaust, is that after the cam etc...the flowmaster 80 series I have, got stupid loud...it sounded great with cats and stock manifolds...but after deleting the cats and LT with cam etc..its too loud for me now. I def don't want a quiet exhaust, but do not want it to be as load as the FM system I have now is either.

 

On Holley’s web site they are listing two adaptor kits to hook up to LT headers. $119.95 for 409SS and $139.95 for 304SS.

 

On my car, running high flow cats, it's a little louder than my old Magnaflow quad tip catback with off road y pipe. Not by much. It's a fair bit louder than the Magnaflow was with a catted ory. It's much quieter than the SLP loud mouth that was on it with ory.

To put it in perspective, it's loud enough that everyone can hear the car and the cam but not so loud that I feel uncomfortable around cop cars in traffic.

Out of all the exhaust configurations I've had, this is my favorite. It's the perfect volume for me. It draws attention without being a total annoyance to others. I've received several comments on how nice it sounds by strangers.

It's definitely still loud at WOT though. When my car was on the dyno my wife said it sounded terrifying lol.

 

Just ordered the 50 state legal version from COSpeed, I'm excited! Gotta take off the long tubes for smog so i figured i'll run the stock manifold through these to see how it sounds. If it isn't enough sound for me then i'll save up and buy better long tubes.

 

I never posted any ground clearances on this project. My stock height SS has just over 4.5" of clearance with the Hooker BH system. My lowest part of my car is the passenger side header (4.5"). Headers are SE 1 7/8. Car in this photo is stock weight minus back seat, rear seat belts, jack, spare, air pump system and egr system. Yep, I definitely have the 4x4 going on and need a bit of drop.

I'm still VERY happy with this system.

 

can you post some pics from the back and sides of the bumper so we can see how the mufflers look on a camaro?

 

I'll be glad to. I'll take some photos tomorrow and post them.

 

I tucked my tips under pretty tight. I like how the tips contour the bumper. I'm a bit OCD and thought the muffler offset would bother me, but I don't really notice it much and the cost, sound and clearance of the system far exceeds the worry of the offset.

 

Is there any room at the tips to mate it all to a CME?

 

It certainly looks so. I don't know of anyone that has done it yet, but if you compare the Blackheart system in the first pic to the custom system with cme in the second pic there appears to be room. In fact the blackheart mufflers look like they sit an inch or two further away from the bumper than the mufflers on that custom system, leaving even more room to work. You can tell by where the mufflers end in relation to the crease in the middle of the trunk pan. Of course, the 90* bends will have to be further out on one side to compensate for the offset of the mufflers from the center of the car.

 

thanks for the comparison pics. hooker really should off something like that if it will work for the camaro guys. im sure that will help with sales as well with people on the fence with that sort of thing.

 

At what point would this catback become a bottleneck? I don't plan on going big cubes anytime soon but probably heads/cam/spray. I would much prefer this over a dumped x pipe setup.