Finished my new Cherry Bomb cat-back

[Crazy_pilot]

After a year or so of putting up with a semi-broken muffler flange and noisy leaky exhaust, I finally got around to putting this together.

Stock pre-cats, 2" flex pipes into a Magnaflow 2-1 main cat, mandrel bent 2.5" piping to a DIY Y-pipe that reduces to 2", then two Cherry Bomb mufflers and two Ractive black chrome tips.

Y-Pipe:



With mufflers attached:



Held in place: (underside of car isn't bad for 17 winters)



With mid-pipe being welded up and installed. We re-used the stock midpipe hangar and welded it to the new pipe. Worked really well:





And finally, all done with the tips in place. You can see it tucks up very tight to the bottom of the car, a definite improvement over the failing stocker which scraped over bumps when the car was loaded:






Final opinion? Not bad. A bit of a drone around 1800 RPM (especially once the T/C locks up), but dead silent at 2500. I just drove the car 1000 miles and didn't even notice it. From the outside I've been told it's got a bit of a Ferrari sound to it, and it burbles nicely while winding down. It could use a resonator in the mid-pipe, so I may add a glass-pack at some point down the road. Next step though is to do the front end.

[Tim]

Originally Posted by Crazy_pilot

Final opinion? Not bad. A bit of a drone around 1800 RPM (especially once the T/C locks up), but dead silent at 2500.

The droning will go away when you've got 3 pedals

[TomsSVX]

Very nice job!! Looks great!

Tom

[Blacky]

Beautiful welds!

[SilverSpear]

Great Job!!

[svxash]

Sound clip?

[Crazy_pilot]

Thanks guys! This was a fairly cheap system (probably cost me $300 all in), so I'm looking at it as practise for a fancy stainless system down the line somewhere.

Originally Posted by Tim

The droning will go away when you've got 3 pedals

Working on that one. I've got a clutch sitting in the garage at home! Damn school eating my money...

Originally Posted by svxash

Sound clip?

Unfortunately I don't have easy access to a camera with sound. I'll see what I can do about that.

[BoxerFanatic]

That looks like a great budget option for SVX exhaust. Probably much easier on the wallet than the bigger transverse single muffler with the side inlet like stock, and the seemingly rare F-body end-in and out mufflers.

With a resonator and the oval tips... this could be a nice budget exhaust.

My Legacy's previous-owner's custom exhaust droned like crazy without a resonator... and to re-do it in all stainless, urethane hangers, and the whole 9 yards, went the whole $900+...

On a daily SVX, that is a big bit of money, and pretty much the same as I spent on my SVX... and it likely won't be a showcar... and an exhaust like this is looking really good as a precedent if mine ever needs it.

~300$ sounds a whole lot better than 1500$ for a fantastic, but expensive Stebro or something.

[Crazy_pilot]

Agreed. Here's a cost break-down from Summit Racing for basically what I have:

2 X Cherry Bomb muffler (P/N 87701): $57.90
-Use what you want, but to fit that layout you need mufflers that are as compact as possible.
1 X Magnaflow 94007 Car: $90.95
2 X Summit Racing mandrel bent 2" J-pipes: $29.90
1 X Summit Racing mandrel bent 2.5" J-pipe: $19.95
1 X Summit Racing 2.5" straight pipe: $13.95

Total: $212.65 + shipping. Tips not included, but figure another $100 for a decent set. I also haven't included a good way of replacing the stock main cat with the Magnaflow one, so that will involve your own ingenuity. As a side not, fabricating the Y-Pipe like the one I have is quite labour intensive. The cuts aren't straight, they're curved so that as it is welded together it ends up being 2.5" ID at the entrance.

Edit: Found some nice looking oval tips that would fit the bill for a budet build: Jones Exhaust Part Number PRS600SS. 2.25" inlet, 6" wide outlet, 9" long. List at $25 each. They even have a rolled edge and slant cut tip to blend in perfectly.

[Crazy_pilot]

UPDATE!

Currently working on new pre-cat pipes for the car. I'm using two Magnaflow 54904 cats and 2" piping. Stainless steel O2 sensor bungs and flex pipes from Vibrant Performance, plus some CNC cut flanges round off my setup. So far I only have the front half of the pipes welded up:

Left side:


Right side hanging with the O2 bung in place:


Flanges welded to my Magnaflow 94007 cat from last years build:


Both pipes in place, waiting for the squigly bits.


Tomorrow I'll cut/weld up the curvy bits to join the pipes to the main cat and voila! Good to go. I'm getting impatient, between this and the head gaskets I haven't had my car on the road in 3 weeks.

[TomsSVX]

Nice job, same cats I used on Slade's car

Tom

[ensteele]

Great Job. Hope you get the car on the road soon.

[Crazy_pilot]

Aaaaand finished! Welding everything up was a bit of a pain. There are 21 welded joints in the whole assembly and the shop welder is a dinky little 110V thing. After two welds it would be getting past its duty cycle and start popping. It didn't help that I was welding stainless to mild steed with regular S-6 wire. Ah well, the car is home!!!

The exhaust quieted down a little but still has a nice tone to it. On of these days I'll get a sound clip...

Left side tacked in place:


Finish welding the right side:


Tucks up well under the car:


Everything in place in it's new home:


I used two small flex pipes right at the cat. Most systems I've seen don't include these, but I think it's worthwhile to have them there to reduce stress on the system.

[TomsSVX]

Well done, one of the better systems I have seen on SVXi

Tom