I cut some mandrel u-bend pipes and welded up a custom 3" stainless exhaust for the Lightning the other night and thought I'd share a picture of it. I replaced my full Bassani exhaust with Kooks stepped headers and this exhaust.



Couple cool things to point out. Instead of high flow cats those are bullet race mufflers in front of the Ultraflows, yep four mufflers total. Also on the flanges I installed a "header-buddy". It's a patented gasket-less connection from a local exhaust shop. I've used them on many cars with no leaks for years.

I can't decide on what I want to do about exhaust tips yet so there are none on the truck right now.

 

Nice bends, my mid pipe looks like crap...I'd love to have piping like that!!!

Curious, why use race magnums for cats? To pass visual inspection for emissions?

 

The bullets are for noise reduction and sound shaping only. I have them on other cars. They are straight through so they don't hurt flow but they do take out a lot of high frequency noise. Makes the tone VERY deep.

 

nice work, looks good, but you need some stainless angle cut tips!

 

very cool, how well does it fit? Uses the stock hangers?

 

Superfords
I actually am thinking of making some stainless tips myself, slash cut 3.5" or 4". Not sure yet. May just buy some nice shiney ones. Kind of like like the raw stainless look though. All business!

Konig
The exhaust fits perfectly. I manually cut the pieces out of 3 sections of mandrel U-bent pipes so every turn is exactly where I wanted it. I have it hooked to the rear hanger that the Bassani used. I'm not sure it that is a stock hanger or not. It was on the truck when I bought it.

Forgot to add that I am going to put in a H-pipe soon. There was no room for an X-pipe without the exhaust making a 180degree turn to come out the side like the Bassani does. I'm not a fan of that design.

 

what would you say your total cost has been?

 

Total cost off the top of my head...

2 Dynomax race bullets ~ $60
2 Dynomac Ultaflow ~ $115
Piping (3 U-bends) ~ $80
Header-Buddys ~ $25

Around $280 without tips, which if I make my own will be free from extra stuff laying around.

 

thats great, glad to see someone try something different. You can buy the bassani tips for it, but they are probably somewhat pricey.... I bet if you cut your own and polished them real nice no one would be able to tell you made them. I know some guys who may polish them for you if you make them out of aluminum.

 

Thanks.
Yep different. That's was my main motivation to do it (as opposed to saving money). Also why I'll probably end up making my own tips too. Different look, different sound, and different flow. As far as I know there isn't a mass produced 3" exhaust system out there is there?

 

Iam a fool for stainless. Nice work, but why not polish the stainless at the tips.

What you need to go with that setup is a nice polished stainless driveshaft loop

 

Here's a 3" mass produced cat-back from ATR.


It was a mere $695.00 Not sure if it's even made anymore, not too much demand for it.

 

Stainless driveshaft loop hmmmm.......

SVTRobG,
Hadn't seen that before thanks. Wonder what kind of muffler that is?

 

I recently removed my cats and the volume increase was insane. I like the idea of the bullet mufflers in place of the cats. I will probably do that soon. Great idea.