Ok... my gen 3 'tec's stock y-pipe looks restrictive... the inlet from the manifolds to the cats is about 2" wide, but after the cats, it's only 1.5" or so... i was thinking about having a custom pipe made, with round, hi-flo cats that are 2" inlet and outlet. I have looked at a gen 4 'tec, and they have the wider pipe on both sides of the cats. Has anyone done this to their gen 3, and what were the results? I don't want to lose any bottom end by reducing too much backpressure. I mentioned to Alberto about removing the cats completely, and using MIL Eliminators in place of the rear O2 sensors, but he says it's not a good idea. I thought perhaps hi-flo cats and wider pipes would be good... at least better sound, maybe better performance? Anybody have any thoughts? Oh, and i am putting 2.5" stainless on from the cats back, with dual Magnaflow mufflers and tips, when they get here.
Custom Y-pipe Question
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these could make some great howto's on the site
If you want a good idea of what its going to look like, stick your mug under the nearest Lincoln LS. The trick, my tech thinks, is going to be figuring out how to weld up some custom headers to go along with it. The rear header has a pretty good amount of room, its the front thats a little tight. He figures moving the cats further down stream, doing the front X, add the second pair of cats (to pass VA emmissions you must have AT LEAST the amount of cats and mufflers listed in the book), then go straight back, side by side to just before the suspension box, rear X, then the pipes run under the rear suspension box, then curve out and around the fuel tank, a thin sheet of metal (possibly aluminum to save weight) to protect the fuel lines, then flowmaster 40 or 50 series. The whole rig is probably going to be 2.5", with 3" downturned outlets, to give it a little more rumble with a stealth appearance.
A true dual system would be cool, and the guy at the exhaust shop i went to was looking at a way to do that, but it'd be pretty tight running 2 pipes down that tunnel in the rear of the car. I've also read on a SHO forum that true duals on a SHO wouldn't really make much difference. If that's true, then i can't see it making a lotta difference on a duratec either. But, since you're gonna make one, i think i'll wait and see how yours turns out. Good luck. I hope you prove the disbelievers wrong. (ya, pics of it all would be great too)
True duals do work well with the SHO, but with only very good tuning of the LPM. I don't think that you will be able to use an "X" pipe effectively because the of the orientation of our engines. The length between the exhaust manifold and the "X" will be different for each bank of the engine and defeat the extra scavenging of the exhaust. In fact you may cause yourself to loose power. The placement of a cross over in a dual system is important and you need to have a good understanding of fluid dynamics and how the engine is operating and every rpm point and where you want to enhance the exhaust pulses.
Bob
Bob
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