I have a 1980 and I want to throw on headers with true dual exhaust, crossover and some flowmasters. For headers I was thinking of getting sum short block huggers I think there called. My question - I've seen alot of vettes with true duals and I was wondering where could I buy them? I dont want to go to an exhaust shop around here because they over charge and do **** work, one shop quoted me $1200, I never laughed so hard in my life lol. The only kits I've found online are without the crossover or with mufflers I dont want. Plus im a college kid so im trying to save every penny I can.

Thanks!

 

You can get complete true duals from about $300 from suppliers like Corvette Central, Eckler's, Corvette America, etc. They are all good quality and you'll be happy with them.

Shorty or block hugger headers are available from many sources...speed shops, Summit Racing, and Jegs. I like Sanderson, but there are lots of good brands...get coated, not plain painted.

 

Hooker makes a set (pt# 16521HKR), but it is designed to work with long tube headers. Summit Racing has it for $159.95. Summits pt# is HOK-16521HKR.

 

If you don't mind, get long tube headers like the Summit brand. They go on without dents or anything tight to get to,took about 10 mins each side to put in.
No matter what you do you will have to have the muffler shop weld the collectors to the pipe.
My exhaust, headers, pipes and Flowmasters cost $450.

 

Your profile isn't filled out, so we don't know where you are located - and therefore don't know the specific details the requirements for your jurisdiction.

Something to keep in mind - any deviation from the factory exhaust design before the catalytic converter is in violation of federal emissions regulations. That said, many states have rolling exemptions where vehicles over a certain age don't go through emissions testing, and therefore are exempt as a practical matter. You don't want to spend a bunch of money on an exhaust, only to find out that you can't license your car.

 

Shorty headers won't gain you much if any so might look into the true duals made to fit into the stock exh routing, but be sure to heed Batman's warning though

 

I had block hugger shorty headers and ready made dual pipes on my '80 for a while. The fit was pretty bad - they hung too low and hit often. The block hugger headers melted my poly engine mounts, so I decided to start over with the system I should have installed in the first place with full length ceramic coated headers and custom pipes. Don't bother with shorty headers.

You will need to keep your left pipe on the left side because the angle bend from the collector to the right side will be too sharp as this picture shows:



You'll need to make a simple mod to the cross member to get enough clearance under the left pipe. (I have 1/4" more under the left than the right pipe in the stock position with this mod.) I used a 1x4 with a 3 1/2" half circle cut off the end as a template. I cut the 1x4 to length from the floor (or lift ramp in my case) to just below the cross member seam. I positioned the 1x4 about half way between the transmission and driver's floor pan. I used spray primer to create a shadow of the 1x4 on one side, masked the cross member bottom, and made the same shadow on the other side of the cross member.



Then I used an air cutoff tool to cut out the cross member.



(I took advantage of the opening and treated the surface rust inside the cross member.)

The guy at my favorite performance muffler shop split a piece of 3 1/2" pipe lengthways and welded it into the cross member. I ground things smooth, primed, and painted the modified cross member.





Then I took it back to the shop for pipes and H-pipe. He used as much of my old system he could to save some $$, so there are a few unnecessary bends. This system sounds great and the performance gain was obvious on my butt-o-meter!



Give it a listen!

http://s124.photobucket.com/albums/p...t=MVI_0207.flv

BTW, I have Dynomax full length ceramic headers from Summit and Flo-Pro mufflers:

http://www.flopro.com/FloPro.htm

 

Sounds like you have great intentions, but I'd like to throw my 2 cents in. If you're looking to gain a couple extra horses, you don't want to go with the standard 4 into 1 headers. On a 1980, the compression was quite low (I believe 8.5:1 or 8.9:1, depending on L48 or L82) If you go with the standard 4 into 1 header, you won't have enough compression or exhaust scavenging to completely clear the cylinder of exhaust gasses, therefore actually giving you less power and performance gains than your standard manifolds. For a low compression motor, it would be far more beneficial for you to put in what is called a Tri-Y header. It provides much more exhaust scavenging and back pressure that you need on a lower compression motor. Just my personal opinion, but you might actually regret going with a standard header. Here's a link to a good Tri-Y header. The link to the corvette set is in the top right hand corner. http://www.stans-headers.com/tri_y.htm

 

When I lived in Florida, I dealt with a national chain 'Rainbow Muffler'. They installed a set of true duals from my header collectors back to my mufflers for $300. I already had the headers and mufflers; add $200-$300 for mufflers. Then, an h-pipe for $50. They installed two exhaust systems that they bent (my Silverado and the '80 L48) and even installed a stainless dual exhaust on my '69 L46 that I purchased from Stainless Works for all of $100 in labor and hangers.

With my 80's aftermarket 700R4's cross-member, I found that buying the mailorder systems for the orig TH350 crossmember would not work; the crossmember clearance is different. And ordering the older, through the cross-member pipes was money wasted as they would not clear my 700R4's crossmember either.

Very satisfied with my choice.

P.S. The shop wrote 'cat-back system' on the receipt for my 80's dual system... Oh, and I drove the vette to the shop with open headers and short straight-pipes. A little old lady pulled up to me and told me my car needed mufflers... I told her they were in the front seat and I was on my way to have the system installed. She just smiled!

 

I got true duals for a grand total of $80.00. I just had the small time local shop cut out the section where the CAT was. That section where the pipes go in to a single was replaced with a double. It was cheap yet way effective.