TTI Exhaust Install, Part 4

Yup. One more day did it. Here's what I found today. The hangers for this system provide a ROCK SOLID exhaust, like something I've never seen before. Grab the tail pipe and give it a good shake, you MIGHT get 1/4" movement out of it. Awesome. What this means to me is that if you've got 1/4" of clearance at any point, you've probably got enough. You might even be able to get by with as little as 1/8", but that would be pushing it in my opinion. Here's the last round of photos...

Lesson # 76: when assembling the system from front to rear, be sure to allow space for gaskets betwen the collector flange and the exhaust pipe flange (Note the nice fat flanges on the TTI Stepped Headers). As you can see, I did not. I put the system together loosely so that I could move it around as needed to get it all to fit. I should've put a junk gasket in there just to have the space, but I didn't. No big deal, really, but it's just one more thing you have to do later. Note that in this photo, the header is NOT bolted to the collector. At all. Yes that's the gap between the two when it's just hanging ther. Don't believe me? Then check this out...

Here's a shot of BOTH pipes HANGING from just the rear tail pipe hangers and the muffler hangers. There MIGHT be 1/8" of sag in this system. You can barely see the gap in the passenger side flanges. Thinner than a gasket, that's for sure! Time to break out the soft-face dead blow hammer and "encourage" a little more space between the two.

The only booger in this project is that I was not able to get the final tweak on the passenger side tail pipe, so it DOES contact the subframe. Bummer. I'll just dimple the pipe enough to get rid of the occasional rattle. Like that dimple is going to affect the flow in these sewer pipes...

Another shot of the PS rub spot. I think that given the fit of the system as a whole, this is just a case of me not putting it together right. Everything else is nearly perfect in how it goes together.

Probably no need to burn up bandwidth with photos of the system clamped together. There is a clamp in basically all of the usual places: header collector, crossover pipe, and both ends of the mufflers.

And yes, I did video the engine running! I had to, and man, is it SWEET! As soon as I can strip the audio off of the video, I'll post it (here). It's not as loud as I thought it might be, even with the car backed up to my house. Idle isn't much different than it was with the 2" system with no crossover I had on her, and the tone is deeper and at the same time mellower. I think that's the crossover pipe in action there. Rev her up, and there's a little bark to her, and I can hear the headers doing their thing up front. All of this is a far cry from the leaking manifolds I used to have on her. I LIKE it!! Not bad for a bajillion mile low-squeeze 318!

Next Project....B-Body 8.75...

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Updated 01-14-02