I was looking at a El Camino recently and the guy had dual exhaust, one pipe going the right way, and the other going UNDER the crossmember. Dual exhaust, no moddification? Would this be practical for a driver going over speed bumps and such? BTW he had a 454 with reasonable sized pipes. Thanks, Dan
Ask anybody that runs full length headers on the street and they'll tell ya that those hitting on a decent bump is pretty common, so pipes (especially some healthy sized ones) running under the crossmember would be running even several inches LOWER than the headers. Not only would they surely hit at some point, which I guess you could just cut out the dimple and splice in a new piece whenever that happened, but it would look kinda tacky (at least for my taste!) to see the pipes drooping under the car.
I've done this... I had a '78 Malibu with a small block chevy that had full-length headers back in 1990. I had absolutely no clue about the crossmember until after I installed the engine -- even small speed bumps were a problem. I nearly ripped out my exhaust on a rough road and ended up having my brother-in-law weld in a second hump. Back in 1990 there were no suppliers (that I could find) manufacturing the crossmember. There are several out there now that are reasonably priced and not too hard to find. This guy is asking for trouble.
i had a 78 regal and the shop ran both pipes over to the right side after the headers , was ok but alot of pipe bends, no scraping thou. andy
I did the el cheapo once, worked great with my stock engine. The under method seems a clear way to end up with some custom flat pipes. The crossmember upgrade was well worth it for the vibration damping, launch rigidity and hassle elimination.
Hi Guys, First time poster here. I have an 83 Regal with a 455 and what I used for a crossmember was out of a 73 Century GS. I used that crossmember because I was running headers which are kind of long and I needed the dual humps for the exhaust. I did have to cut the boxed section on the passenger side of the frame for the crossmember to fit. I am running 2 1/2" exhaust from the headers back. This was my only option back when I did my 455 with an overdrive trans in a Regal ( almost 20 years ago ). Rob 83 Regal Limited 455 Stage 1 700R4 87 Turbo T