Doing one's own exhaust

[Urko]

Originally the AMC had a kind of Y piece where the exhaust from the two banks of the mighty* V8 joined, went into a single large silencer.  A previous hacker split these, put in a cross pipe, two small straight through silencers and some truly crap (even by my standards) welding to fashion a twin exit system that was both leaky and noisy.

 

I rang a place about a stainless exhaust - he estimated £900 - needless to say that didn't happen.

 

When the two "silencers" had rotted away to almost nothing, resulting in MOT fail, I bought two replacements and welded up the worst of the leaky bits.  Using some (very expensive) off the shelf bits and about a million U clamps, I got something that would enable an MOT pass.

 

Does anyone roll their own exhausts and have any Viz top tips?  I think I'm going to need to buy some beefier silencers - instead of that nice V8 burble, it's a bit crackly for my liking - but in particular, either getting two bits of pipe suitably bent to clear the rear axle or a way of not bothering would be good.

 

Needless to say OEM or even pattern exhausts are made of unobtainium these days.

[dome]

Try Merlin Motorsport-they do individual exhaust sections so you can make your own system up.

[twosmoke300]

Jetex used to do individual sections in stainless and mild . Could order through halfords years ago . Not sure now . My local exhaust place (Ses) holds most bends / flexis and straight pipe

[Junkman]

US Car Parts in Luton will make any exhaust for any yank for normal money.

Please replace the Punch and Judy theatre exhaust with something some very well paid graduate engineers came up with in the first place.

[cros]

I buy nice thick stainless bends and straights off eBay, spend ages lying under the car making everything fit beautifully before tack-welding it up, sometimes setting my hair on fire in the process. I use a stick welder with stainless rods; modern inverter machines produce a very neat weld. The complete pipe is then removed and welded all round the joints to produce a system that will last a liftime. One year later I sell the car.

[Urko]

The bits I used came from Jetex - collected from their place in Stratford on Avon, but the costs soon mount up. Tack welding and setting my hair on fire is obviously the most attractive propspect.

 

I do need something approximating the original - not least to get back some proper ground clearance. Thanks all.

[Barry Cade]

I made me own for the Challenger. Bought 2 LWB Transit centre sections- big bore, straight and cheap, added 2 Volvo 740 back boxes, then 2 nice chrome twin exit pipes which poked through the rear valance. Looked good, sounded good and less than a hundred quid. Got a pair of headers from the 'states and didn't put in a balance pipe for the proper lopey idle sound. Volvos have loads of little sections for their big old RWD models that go over the axles.

[tooSavvy]

..to produce a system that will last a liftime. One year later I sell the car.

I paid nigh £400 for my cat-back s/s. One off 2fit.

 

lolz... The car is 8, the pipe will outlast the car

 

 

TS

[Urko]

I made me own for the Challenger. Bought 2 LWB Transit centre sections- big bore, straight and cheap, added 2 Volvo 740 back boxes, then 2 nice chrome twin exit pipes which poked through the rear valance. Looked good, sounded good and less than a hundred quid. Got a pair of headers from the 'states and didn't put in a balance pipe for the proper lopey idle sound. Volvos have loads of little sections for their big old RWD models that go over the axles.

That is bloody genius ! Why am I so thick? Thanks, I'll get on it.

[Urko]

US Car Parts in Luton

Who?  Google was not my friend.

[twosmoke300]

You can buy over axle bends off the shelf too

[PhillipM]

Using OE back and mid boxes is far cheaper than buying materials to buy your own - I do make my own silencers for the racer or bikes where you need certain shapes and sizes, it invariably ends up about 60-100 quid in material by the time you're done with perf, making end caps, outer skin, baffles, packing, etc, before you even get to the hassle of half a day rolling and making them up.
 As for piping, find somewhere near you that supplies to the dairies - dairy tube is peanuts compared to 'proper' stainless exhaust tubing - and even better, they might know of a dairy nearby ripping out all their out-of-date tube for new stuff - our entire manifold is made out of second-hand tube from a dairy farm, cost £50 for the lot: