lol, long story short.. im poor so i want my formula to sound a bit better than the other few in town, but i have $0. so after i inspect it im gonna take it in the shop and prob just take the pipes off the headers... however, alot of people i know say im retarded cus if im ever caught in traffic all the exhaust is gonna fill the interior. and i must admit theyre right. so i started considering some straight pipes... but ive never done this to anything or known anyone with either of these done. so basically what im asking is, in your opinion, what would be best? i know open headers scream, but im worried about the exhaust (town police are cool, they wont bother me about it) and how much quieter would pipes be? i know they will dampen it to some extent, but noticeably? again, im a complete noob on this subject so try to be nice

edit: if it matters its a 97

Haha don't worry everybody on here is nice. Honestly in my opinion, i would run straight pipes because i think that open headers are just a bit too obnoxious. When i was doing my header install, before i put on the y-pipe i drove it around town and, yeah, it was loud. But it was JUST loud, nothing more. It is so much more refine with the pipes on i think, sounds more like a nascar. But it's really up to you in the end, since it is your car.

Here's one other possibility that you could do if you want to run the open headers, but dont want the fumes to come into your car....run some extended pipes to the rear axle and dump them there. No gutted cats, no muffler, no fumes in the car. That should work. Oh, but i should warn you that running open headers will cause you to lose quite a bit of torque since your car is going to have absolutely no backpressure. You will notice it, but those LT1's do have a lot of pavement-ripping torque already, i'm sure you can sacrifice some if you want.

I hope no one lives beside you cause even straight pipes will be loud. Also,since there is no converters or 02 sensors anymore you will get a SES light and the car will not run right unless the PCM is tuned for those changes. You'll also have to turn your radio up loud to hear it.

Do you already have headers on the car and if so, what type are they? (Shorties, Mids, or LT's) If you already have LT's and have cats on them, you should already be getting the SES light if you haven't tuned the car, since the rear 02's aren't reading what they want to read. Good news is, the rear 02's dont affect the way the car drives at all. Only bad thing is that you will have to stare at the SES light and won't pass emissions with it on. The front 02's are the ones you will have to worry about, and you MUST have them on the car, otherwise the car will run like complete crap and could screw up a lot of things. No tune will ever allow you to tune the front's out either. So make sure that you have them in there and dont remove those if you do plan to run open headers.

haha, not a problem... between my sled, 3 dirtbikes, quad and other radom arsenal of toys my whole neighborhood hates me already:D:D



nope, its bone stock other than the yoko tires and window tint

Ooh okay so you've got the stock exhaust manifolds on. Since you dont have aftermarket headers, here's what i would do. Go out and get a cutout and weld it into your exhaust before your muffler. That should only cost you about $30-40 to do from what i've heard from others.

Really, this is your only route to go, because your front 02 sensors don't plug into your stock manifolds, they plug into the pipes that you want to take off. So if you REALLY wanted to do this, you would have to cut your pipes and then you would have to keep the car that way. I wouldn't recommend this at all...either get a cutout or just save for a new catback. You'll be happier you did!

sounds good... i guess ill do that once im out of debt and the car runs again

I have a cutout on my car with an electric motor to open and close it. Honestly it hasnt been closed since i bought and installed it. DONT get shorties.....My LT1 is nothing but problems now because the shorties really werent set up right on these engines. The cutout will do what you want, and you car will still have a stock look, so mustangs wanting to play wont know what youre really hiding haha

These are some pics of my cutout

there is also a small sound clip of my car on the vids and pictures forum with the cutout closed and opened if you want to hear it

lol, you know it...

check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVm4Y0na69w

wow... running lean much????


oh and its offical, once my birds back from the shop im putting straights on it.

my motivation: today in auto systems i was working on a buick regal and the air compressor in the shop broke, so dustin (fellow student) went and stole the one in welding. well welding class is a bit on the gettho side and the exhaust on the lil 3.5 hp engine was a 6inch lead pipe, an L-joint and another 6inch lead pipe. so dustin takes it in and hooks it up and starts revving it.. now not knowing the gettho compressor was in the shop, i start thinking "f, who brought the sick muscle to school and how hards it gonna be to rob him???" so i looked out the window and to my surprise there was a dodge stratus there, now im thinkin "***?!?!?!" so i start to head outside and i see dustin kneeling next to the garage door grinning from ear to ear playing w/ the throttle of the lil' compressor. i have a 6hp engine on my gokart with no exhaust and it sounds nothing like that 3.5 compressor.

so yeah, straight pipes it is.

LOL!....I dunno if a compressor with a straight pipe is a good reference as to how your car will sound. Straight pipes sound good, but that is loud, ALL THE TIME. if that is what you want then by all means. Hopefully any girls you want to take out dont mind holding their ears when they ride haha. A thing to take into consideration is how far back your pipes are gonna run. The F-body isnt comaptible with full straight pipes to the rear of the car. It's just the way the car is set up. You would have to dump it probably right at the front seats of your car. With that, you lose back pressure, which is big power loss when you cut it out of LT ans LS bodies.

I think that is what I got out of the others on this site because they convinced me that the I-pipe in the stock position is the way to go.
If I'm wrong dont heisitate to put me in my place but I dont think the air compressor is a very good comparison. haha

i dont think its a 100% comparison per say but idc, its enough for me.. and i planned on dumping the pipes behind the doors, near the rear wheel wells.

as for the girls, most at pinkerton think loud is hot. i see losers with 3inch cans on their civics picking up chicks left and right, and cans sound like "poo"... i think im just gonna start following them around and when ppl start giving the civic looks ill dump mine into neutral and make them deaf:D:D not to mention chicks know nothing about how the sound of an exhaust is related to engine performance, all the know is loud = better... and in that case, ill win:D

sedition97, you said in your first post that you need to get your car inspected. Do you have to do this every year or is it just a one time thing since you just bought your car? I'm just asking cause you said that you want to dump the exhaust right behind the door but before the rear tires and in most states it's illegal to dump the exhaust before the rear axle because of the dangers of the exhaust entering the inside of the car and if you dump the exhaust where you want to more then likely it will fail inspection and most of the time a failed inspection will mean you're not allowed to get the plates/tags for your car renewed. So I'd check the law in your area to be sure if it's legal or not so that you don't run into any surprises when you go to renew your plates/tags.

Also you might want to restate where you said that chicks know nothing about how the sound of an exhaust is related to engine performance cause there's a couple of us gals on here that know the difference.

ok...

local highschool chicks know nothing about the sound of an exhaust and its relation to performance

and like i said, petes a friend... we've never had to worry about inspection, at one point i drove a taurus with busted tierods, big holes in the cat and one cylinder fired real weak... i think it was the injector... either way it passed the ", i dont care. heres a sticker." test

Straight Pipes. All the way. I use to rock them on my 87 trans am