Having searched the forum re kit dual exhausts and finding little, I'll start a thread. Have any of you tried some of the kits, like Heartthrob? I want to put true duals on the Explorer, and have been thinking of using one of the kits since I'm removing the cat and realize it is unlikely any shop will do that for me. So, what about ordering in a kit?

I'm retaining the stock exhaust manifolds, which somewhat limits the options since many of the kits are "cat back". And other kits are "header fit", so they are out.

One option I have is to put on a true dual system I took off of one of the parts trucks. The exhaust pipes are ok but rusty, the muffs are glass packs, and the tail pipes are shortened because they were rotten. That system would at least get me to a shop where they could "do their thing" installing a complete new system. Or, if I really liked the sound, which I doubt, they could just install new tail pipes. But, it is a well-used system and I'm not sure I want it on the truck.

Suggestions? Experience?

 

I took my truck to an exhaust guy who has the equipment (tubing bender, etc.) in his garage, he does side work at home in his spare time.

Must be pretty dedicated to have one of those machines as his own property.

 

The biggest problem you run into is the passenger side tank if equipped. 4WD is another headache. I had the heartthrob 3" catback kit on mine. I've posted the clips a few times. I just replaced the muffler recently with a chambered unit. I like the sound more now. I will be going back to a quieter exhaust when I put the 351 in. I find it too loud for the campgrounds with the 3" on there. Heddman makes a manifold back dual kit that lists for a 302, I think it should also fit the 351 as it is only a matter of spreading the down pipes a little more before welding. It runs the exhaust down the passenger side. Still pondering it myself.

EDIT: Sorry, Hooker not Heddman

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/HOK-16665HKR/

Instructions for them - http://static.summitracing.com/globa...k-16565hkr.pdf

 

I'm running the Hooker setup...Good quality but the instructions are worthless!!!

The crossover pipe from the driver side hangs too low, and the pipe is too large to run above the cross member. The way its designed to hang is below the trans cross member with about an inch of space between them. We ended up painting the whole kit flat black to help hide it from the side view.

The passenger side pipe rattles against the bolt on the cross member.

If you hang it according to the directions the tail pipes wind up STACKED ON TOP of each other and exiting behind the rear, passenger side wheel. Now we extended one of them and got them to come out one in front, the other behind which is how i wanted it to begin with. I also found some chrome exhaust tips to finish the system off.

THe reason i went with this kit was, like you i kept the stock manifolds and its slim pickins. I couldn't find a local shop that would touch my system after the motor swap, because i removed the cats.

Muffler choice are Thrush Welded, the chambered ones not the turbo style.

These give a nice deep tone with the 302, without the resonating effect in the cab and without being too loud until you really mash down on the gas and wind the tach up.

If you can find a shop to do a custom setup then i would suggest going that route, which whenever i get my pennies saved i'm going to have mine redone.

 

I have taken stiff cardboard, cut and tape what a I want as a pattern, and taken it to the shop and had them bend the pipe for me to copy the cardboard. Like welding, painting, sheetmetal work, etc. it takes a little bit of trial and error, and the ability to think in 3 dimensions all at once. A hacksaw and a wire feed welder also help if the pipe needs to be tweaked.

I made my own exhaust on my 80 using universal pieces you can get at the auto stores. I had to go to several stores to get enough pieces, and the prices vary wildly, so you may be better off getting the muffler shop to bend some pieces for you.

I had headers, and they did hang low. After they were installed, I had to get under the truck with a long piece of metal, stick it in the header, and bend it down as much as possible so it would not hit against the tranny oil pan(they were cheap flowtech headers).

I then put a universal 90 degree 2 1/4" elbow on each header reducer, and pointed it to the outside of the frame. I slipped another elbow on each one of these, and that got me beyond the outside of the frame, and then I pointed the elbow up at a 45 degree angle. Then I bought a 45 degree piece and put this on each elbow and this leveled the system back out, up high out of site, along the outside of each frame rail. Then I installed a straight piece and then the mufflers.

After the mufflers I installed another 45 degree fitting. I messed around with the angle of the 45 and the muffler so it cleared the outer body, and so it would exited beyond the outside of the body, in front of the rear tire. I had about $100 in the various pieces if pipe and muffler clamps and hangers. I paid about $25 each for the cheap turbo mufflers.

This system sounded excellent to me. The headers will make it loud, and the turbo mufflers quieted it down just enough to make it sound nice. The inspector later made me put two cats on it, one in each pipe. I was surprised he let me get away with that, but I had to get a sticker. I just inserted the universal cats ahead of the mufflers, and had plenty of room to still work everything in place. The only thing I didn't like was the cats made it a little too quiet, and I lost that good sound I had before.

You can see the exhaust hanging down in this picture when I had the bed off. I had a exhaust hanger bolted to the underside of the bed, so I had to take that loose to raise the bed.

 

Thanks to all for the input, and that was really good input. Given the issues you folks have run into with the kits, and those are consistent with what I've read elsewhere, I think my best option is to put the duals/glass-pack system on that came off the parts truck. That will at least get me to a muffler shop, and maybe I'll like the sound - although I seriously doubt it. After all, I'm 64 and not 18, which was my age when I put glass packs on the 348 in my '58 Impala.

That way I can tell the guy at the shop how I'd like him to run the pipes, where they should exit, and that they should miss the side tank (assuming I leave it in) and the spare tire. Or, I could just say "put some new tail pipes on it".

But, that does beg the question of what mufflers to go with. Given that I won't have either headers or cats, what do you recommend, keeping in mind that I am now officially a grandpa, I love the throaty sound, and I don't want to wake the neighbors everytime I start it.

 

Mufflers, walker turbos is what we ran on our 390. Nice throaty tone at idle, but not loud. Would wake up in the higher rpms though.

 

thrush welded...< $30 ea from summit and not innards to blow / burn out

 

It's almost dark out, I'll try and take pix of what I had done.

Probably tomorrow.

 

Sometime prior to the process of rebuilding my engine, I spent some time in the Exhaust forum here and learned some opinions on what is good & bad, right & wrong, etc.

I then installed (JY) headers and then had the exhaust system replaced...

Had my dad call around the area looking for reputable places that can do custom exhaust and came across a guy about 75 miles north who works in a commercial shop during the day and has all the equipment at home for a side business.

He did mine for something between half and 2/3 the cost of a commercial shop but I left it with him for a few days to do it. My total cost parts & labor was $400.




Truck used to have factory manifolds, no cats, and true dual exhaust (rusting to pieces).

400 V8 engine.

Now have JY headers, 2.5" true dual exhaust running down the passenger side but exiting both sides of the rear.

Here's how we did it:

The LH side needs to cross over to the right, here are the header collectors & flanges:






I had a similar installation with the stock manifolds; use your imagination and look at this picture:

That is the old LH pipe, you're seeing the manifold flange. It did the same thing - ran from the LH side, across the engine, and up along the passenger side.

(It's up on a shelf near the ceiling in my garage between some ladders and I don't much feel like climbing up there to take it down to take pictures so use your imagination. )

From what you see, it extends to the wall for a foot or so and then immediately bends to the left and runs for a while.

I still have the manifolds and some pipe pieces from the old system, I keep this stuff although I don't really know why, I guess in case I need to revert back to the way it was (I'm **** about that).






Anyhow, continuing on:

Getting over the transmission mount:



The guy who did this for me says all the bends & lengths & angles are all computerized, he just fits the pipe onto the machine, loads in a template from the computer, and pushes the gray OK button.




I chose a single muffler that has two inputs & exits; it is effectively two mufflers in one unit.

Into the muffler:





The back (exit) side:






And the exit out both sides of the rear:





The one thing about this setup that I don't like so much but isn't a show-stopper is the tail pipes are reversed from the engine banks.

IOW the LH tail pipe is in fact connected to the RH engine bank.

It's not intuitive but I can deal with it, it's not a big enough deal to take it back to the guy and have him change it.



I had installed the spare tire carrier before giving him the truck so he could plan around it, I intend to install that thing someday but need to percolate some creative juices to figure out how (the aftermarket hitch is in the way of the factory mounting holes).

In retrospect, I wish I had done the engine rebuild first and then the exhaust, reason being I would have cut the old exhaust out of the way before removing & reinstalling the engine & transmission, would have made that work quite a bit easier.

I looked into disassembling & removing this system (during the engine/tranny removal) but it's pretty much welded into place, the guy put little spot welds on the nuts & bolts ensuring they don't unintentionally come apart.

 

Is that a dual in dual out muffler?

 

Yes.

 

Chris - Wow! Thanks for the very thorough post. Yours is almost the exact approach I was planning, although I hadn't thought of the dual in/dual out muffler. And, speaking of that, what brand is it and what do you think of the sound? Obviously your sound will be different from mine with headers vs manifolds.

Another diff I was thinking of is to route one pipe over the tranny mount and the other under it. That's the way the exhaust is that I took off the '82 parts truck, and the exhaust I'll probably put back on to at least get it to the muffler shop. But, if they can route both above the mount that should dramatically simplify installation since getting this one off required dropping the tranny.

Speaking of that, I have a short story, and since it is my thread..... Got a response from a guy on CL wanting to buy a radiator I have spare. Met him yesterday evening and discovered he has an '82 Flareside that he's struggling to get on the road. He's changed out the 6 for a 351W, but can't find the right A/C mounting brackets - which I happen to have 2 sets of awa my '82 Explorer as a demo. And, he can't get the oil pressure sending unit to screw into the block as it hits the filter 'cause he doesn't have the hex-shaped extension/adapter - of which I have two.

I told him he must join FTE and he said there's no question, he will. And, he was just thrilled to find us as a resource as he said he's at his wit's end. So, y'all, please be watching for Derrick Clemmon.

And, to finish off the story awa this post, he happened to mention that he's had true duals put on his truck at a place that's near me. So, at least I have a place to start looking, and one test will be how willing to work w/me they are on the routing.

 

It has MAGNAFLOW written across it. I remember the guy offering it to me, don't remember if this is a brand name or only a product name but the guys at the muffler shop should be able to help ya.






I have a hard time believing I'm actually doing this but I made a video using my camera and uploaded it to YouTube.

IMHO people will get only a general idea of the true sound because 1) a camera can capture only so much, and 2) listening to stuff like this on computer speakers is like listening to a rock concert on an AM transistor radio.

Compressing the movie into a Shockwave (flash video) format doesn't help.

Nevertheless, here it is:

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7WTGOq6Agf4?hl=en&fs=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


I'm fairly happy with the sound; it makes a sort of quiet yet rumbly statement at lower RPMs yet is almost obnoxious when you stand on the throttle.

I came across I think it was a Dodge truck on the street somewhere, I really liked how it sounded but wasn't able to ask him what sort of exhaust system he had. About all I can say for certain is he had EFI and cats, neither of which I have.

Hope he stops by to say Hi.

 

If they can route both above the mount, I would. Try to keep the exhaust as high as possible to; 1. Keep it out of harms way and 2. Keep it out of site when looking a the truck from a side view.

If you run it under the crossmember, there is a chance you might see the muffler peaking out from the truck when he is done, and you might not like the look.

I have also been in the woods getting firewood, running over small branches and accidentally running over old cut-off stumps, and have hooked mufflers on stuff like this before.