I'm in the research phase of planning out a project. In the meantime I have a message out to a guy with a junk 1984 bronco with a good 351w in it for a decent price. The plan, if I go down this road - is to pull the motor and give it a refresh (assuming the compression is good) with some new top end parts and a mild cam to squeeze out a few extra ponies. Nothing crazy but I'd like to get over 200hp which should be easily doable without dropping a small fortune.

That being said, there's a few road blocks largely based on where I live. My question is, if I were to put a cam in - something similar to the Crane 444232, it would be silly not to put headers on it ya? I know the exhaust is a major point of restriction. That's all well and good, no issue except then I need to have custom exhasut made from headers back don't I? nobody makes (that I can see) a Y-pipe for example. There are NO muffler shops within an hours drive of me. Plenty of places that can swap out stock parts but nobody fabricates, at least not as advertised. I should also meantion, I love how headers sound and a nice throaty exhaust but I also do not want it annoyingly loud. I'd like to have a conversation in the cab of the truck.

I also assume that custom exhaust work doesn't come cheap. Soooo now I'm double guessing my whole plan here. Maybe I'm overthinking this thing? I need a cat on these right? I'm in NH, no smog test just OBDII testing for 97? and up.

Just trying to wrap my head around what I wanna get myself into here. This isn't meant to be a $10k build, just something fun to drive that is somewhat realiable, and looks ok.

 

Your decision has been made for you. Stock exhaust with maybe a different muffler. If you can't get a custom system bent and installed, you are up the creek.

There is this system, but it's for manifolds and a 302. https://www.lmctruck.com/1980-96-for...xhaust-systems

 

Don't shorty headers use the factory Y pipe?
Then use factory pipes all the way out back no cat and a performance muffler.
Should sound good and be able to get parts as needed.
Dave ----

 

After I posted this last night I was looking at shorty headers - I also gathered they should use the factory Y-pipe. Even if I had to modify it a little bit it would be worth it. Hmm, ok. I know that's not as big of a boost in performance as long pipe headers but actually think I'd prefer it anyway, more room and clearance for one thing.

Doing some research on this stuff makes me realize there's a serious gap in the market near me, maybe I need to go into business.

 

After I posted last night I got to thinking, yep some times not good

You did see why shorty headers could be a good thing, they dont drag on the ground

Something you may want to look into and why I say this.
Between the 80 - 86 300 six trucks with carbs and the 87> 300 six trucks with EFI the EFI trucks had a better flowing EXH system.
The EFI had a cast "shorty header" manifolds that flow better than the log EXH manifolds on the carb motors.
BUT .... the pipes for the EFI system from the manifolds on back to tail pipe is just a little bigger.
It was easy to use a 94 F150 EFI 300 six system on my 81 F100 truck. I did go with a performance welded muffler and no cat.

So with that said you may want to look into the size pipes used on say a 460 or even a diesel truck if larger than what your truck uses.
If your truck uses a carb maybe look into the EFI trucks of the later years to see if they use larger pipes like in my case.
You will need to check if the pipes run in the same location on you truck and the ones you are looking at.
If you dont plan to run a cat you can just use a pipe to fill the gap. My truck is a short bed so I just used 2 pipes for a long bed to fill the gap.

My reason for using the 94 pipes besides being larger is I can get any of the EXH system from any parts store as long as I can remember the year & truck it came from LOL.
Sometimes you have to think outside the box to get what you need
Dave ----

 

Good information, thanks! I would think (like you said, sometimes not good) that because 80-96 trucks all share a chassis that the exhaust routing would be pretty close, maybe some hanger locations would be different, no big deal. I'll keep that in mind for down the road.

 

Look at the pst above "My 81 F100 project"
he list a 3" he got from Summit Racing if you want to go that big single.
Dave ----