Help! exhaust upgrade
 

i'm in the middle of upgrading the exhaust on my otherwise stock 86 GT. the car's new to me and the first two upgrades i'm doing are 3:73 gears and exhaust. my goal, by the way, is not to build a daily driver and not to build a race car, but somewhere in between: this will be a hobby car, pleasure use only in the good weather, that will go to the track once or twice a year to get an idea of the bang i'm getting for my upgrade buck.

the question i have is this: i've bought Magnaflow o/r x-pipe and cat-back system. was going to get performance headers before installing it all. i'm wondering if i shoudn't just stick with the stock headers for now. as i read some of the advice on this and other sites and from talking to friends i'm worried i may be losing too much back pressure with the conversion from H to X pipe; is putting a set of performance headers on going to make that situation even worse? and if i stick with the stock headers for now, should i port them out?

as i say, i'm putting in 3:73 gears. future upgrades will include cam and heads (and i guess a new chip will have to be burnt because of that, as it's a SD car). i know i won't get all the sound i want til those engine mods are done. but for now, i'm wondering if i really need to get the performance headers or if in fact that would be detrimental. have i gone too far already (losing backpressure going from H to X)?

i'm having buyers remorse. please let me know what you think


cheers

steve

You wont have an issue installing those parts. If you want headers and your bank book allows for it, go for it. either way, an X pipe wont cause issues.thumb:

No but the X sounds like crap!
- Long tubes
- Off road H-Pipe or pro-chamber
- Magna flow catback firejump:

If you have already bought the X pipe, what type is it?
Is if for stock exhaust manifolds, or other.

if you go with a long tube, you WILL need a "X" or "H" pipe to fit the longs.

I dunno who you're getting advice from-but an x-pipe won't reduce backpressure over an h-pipe, if it reduces it at all, it will be very, very minimal. The reduction in backpressure would be from having no cats and a free-flowing cat-back system. Your car will sound good and run fine with this setup, although I prefer an h-pipe for a deeper tone, an x will give a higher tone. You may need an adaptor to use the pipe with your stock headers, depends what kind it is though, it should say in the instructions. You will not notice a performance reduction because you have a good exhaust, it is better to start with exhaust because it gives some power but mostly you notice better throttle response and sound. It is also a great starting place for your future plans.
Porting the stockers is not worth it IMO, just leave them until you do your engine work and swap them out then.
If you do a cam you will need to change to mass-air, heads and intake will be fine with SD, but a cam usually causes idle problems. If it was me, I'd leave the SD and the stock cam, but get roller rockers, heads and intake, it really depends how far you want to go with it.

personal opinion

this xpipe sounds good to me

http://s104.photobucket.com/albums/m...stevenscar.flv

Thanks PONYRYD, again! I got the advice and the crazy ideas i set out above from some of the chat on this site. I asked the same question of my parts supplier and he said what you did; that whoever told me my set-up was problematic "should be shot". He actually got quite heated about it, saying he's heard about losing backpressure and kissing your tq goodbye etc with this kind of set-up, and he says it's nonesense. he's known around the shop as the Mustang GURU, and has owned and raced 4 dif mustangs, so i'm gonna go with his opinion, and yours. Thanks again.

Anyhoo, after getting this feedback i went ahead, got my headers (BBK shorties) and got the whole thing installed yesterday. Works, runs and sounds BEEYOOOTEEFUL!!!!!! I'm thrilled with the results. Now on to the gears.

Once i get 'em in, i'm gonna wanna get your opinion re: heads, roller rockers (i'd no idea what that was, but did some reading last night and think i have an idea), intake and UD pulleys. That'll be a few weeks away though.

Thanks again for your time, input and, as always, bang on & practical advice.

cheers

steve

Glad to help Steve, also happy to hear the car is modded and the sound is to your liking now.thumb:

yes good to hear~!

where did you go to get it all done?

thanks whitesnake.
i ordered the parts through Lordco. their prices aren't great, but i got a guy there gives me a pretty sizeable discount - couldn't have done any better (believe me - i shopped around quite a bit).
i did the install myself. not a piece of cake, but not all that challenging. the only frustrating part was getting the old exhaust out. everything was seized, seized, seized. over the course of a few days i whacked away at it and then gave up, went out and bought a 5" angle grinder, and she was out in approx 4 minutes! yeehaw!
thanks again for the advice guys. much appreciated. now onto the gears (that has me a little intimidated, but i'm gonna see what i can do).

cheers

steve