LT1 Custom Exhaust Questions

[alone_and_insane]

So here's the deal. Just before I moved out to Michigan for the summer, I had custom exhaust built on my LT1. I don't have any pics, but it ended up being crap. The car has true duals, but they suck. For one thing, it rattles on the underside of the car when you get on the gas. Also, the headers have a 3" exit, but they didn't use 3" pipe anywhere. They have two 2.5" pipes that run side by side to the back of the car, and go down to 2.25" when they go over the rear axle. The Xlerator Performance (wtf, never heard of them, especially when I asked for a Magnaflow) muffler has two inlets and two outlets. On one inlet, the shop took two pieces of pipe and welded them together at about a 45* angle, rather than using a curved section of pipe. The tips weren't nearly as big as I wanted them/thought they were gonna be, and they hang down too far from the rear bumper. I wasn't pleased with it from the get-go, but I had to leave for Michigan the day after getting the car back. By the time I got the car back to WI a month later, it had major transmission issues that had to get figured out. So now it's November, the system was built in May...do you think there's actually a shot the shop would still do something about it?


I have Pacesetter longtubes (3" exit) and no cats.

how large do you recommend the tips be? I'm looking for the same style:



I don't really know what diameter would look good/tasteful. The ones I have seem smallish to me, but I don't want obnoxiously huge ones either.

Do any of you guys have some good pictures of your setups that I can show to the shop when I talk to them this weekend?

[MunsterZ28]

i would go in and talk to them explain your situation, but its a crap shoot some shops are great about pleasing customers others are not so much. but i would think they would want to keep a good rep and redo their work. go in and talk to them i think your at a 50/50 shot. no good pics of mine but i had a slp lm1 with 3.5in tips and my dad said they looked like sewer pipes. i liked them and they tucked nice up on the bumper.

[kammi10]

the fact that u have had it on there for so long since they did it and never went and talked to them abiout it... your less likely to get anything from them

[JoeliusZ28]

im not sure what you expected if you asked for duals over the axle. getting 3" over is possible, but certainly not easy enough for the average high school dropout working at a muffler shop to get done. its sad but you really gotta get a good recommendation from someone to find a good shop these days.

[alone_and_insane]

the fact that u have had it on there for so long since they did it and never went and talked to them abiout it... your less likely to get anything from them

yeah I know...but with the circumstances of the exhaust being built in WI, driving the car in MI, having to dump the car in WI for my dad to try and figure out the transmission problems and driving my other car back to MI for the rest of the summer...the circumstances just kind of worked against me

im not sure what you expected if you asked for duals over the axle. getting 3" over is possible, but certainly not easy enough for the average high school dropout working at a muffler shop to get done. its sad but you really gotta get a good recommendation from someone to find a good shop these days.

Well I didn't specifically ask for true duals over the axle...the guy just said that was what they were gonna do, and I figured they knew what was up so I trusted they knew what they were doing. Unfortunately, there aren't any sites like mifbody in WI where I could've gotten a good referral

so what exactly does an x-pipe or a h-pipe do? I've seen many setups have them, but as mine is right now, the pipes aren't connected at all.

Found a guy on LS1tech with this setup, looks pretty similar to the gist of mine (only executed well and with cutouts):

[JoeliusZ28]

crossovers balance the exhaust pressure between banks, making them more efficient. Well worthwhile to do.

[nascarnate326]

I would do an H myself.