Just wondering if any of you have bought mandrel bent exhaust pieces and welded or clamped them on. A friend of mine welded it all together on his '54 Ford car and suggested I do it too. I'm wanting to run true duals from the headers back on my crew. If any of you have I would like to see pics too if possible. Thanks in advance

 

Yes. 2.5 inch systems in my 70 and 73. One kit from Summit plus a couple of extra lengths of straight tubes did both trucks.

 

Thanks Alan. Did you do stainless? I'm going to use 2.5" also. Trying to decide if I'm just going to take it to an exhaust shop (non mandrel) or buy the mandrel bent pieces and weld it all myself. I assume the mandrel bent sounds better and allows for better flow. Do you have pics of either of your systems?

 

I built a cat back for my Tacoma using mandrel bent tube. Definitely use the mandrel bends. Mandrel systems can flow up to 33% better than a crimp bent system.

From the standpoint of someone who makes a living working on vehicles, do not weld the exhaust as one piece from header/manifold to tailpipe tip. Systems like that always end up getting cut apart when a repair requires removal of something major like a transmission. It is far better from a future serviceability standpoint to make the exhaust come apart in sections. For me the tailpipe is removable from the muffler, the muffler is removable from the intermediate pipe, the cat and header will also unbolt separate. This also makes it easier to build as I was able to tack the parts together, remove them, then fully weld the joints out of the vehicle.

 

I went with aluminized and it is holding up well.

A non-mandrel bent 2.5-inch system would end up being sized as a 2.25-inch system due to the crimped tubing.. with a mandrel bent system it is truly 2.5 inches and the full benefit of such.

I'm at work right now but I got pics of both systems in my build threads. Do an advanced search on my user name and "Moroso" and it should return the 73's pics... the build thread for my 70 is linked in my signature below.

 

Thanks for the replies. That's good advice 54. My plan was to clamp on both sides of the muffler so I could remove the sections in front of the muffler and the tail pipes separately. I will check out the link and your threads Alan. Thanks again

 

Unless your are more than 450hp I wouldn't sweat the difference between the two.


Watch hot rod engine masters "header denting" test.


The results were amazing.


Bashed the crap out of them with no decrease in hp....dyno proven.

 

Concur... I prefer strategically located stainless band clamps.

Sho 'nuff.

At this time it's more about attention to detail.

....And no... it doesn't have 450HP... yet.