I'm going to drive the Vette with open headers to Meineke. A guy who works there owns a '76 Vette and just recently installed a true dual exhaust with header setup. He said they normally don't do this but he'd do it for me. My questions lie in the driving with open headers process. Is it safe to drive the car through some stop and go traffic? How about speed? is it safe to drive the car doing say...60 MPH? I know there is a risk of burning up everything within the exhaust's reach and catching fire. I've read quite a few of you guys have driven your open header vette to a shop. The shop distance is about 20-25 mins due to the traffic. Highway would easily give me a 10 minute drive but my destination does not allow any highway driving. I've heard a good amount of bad experience from Midas but how about Meineke? The guy having a Vette himself sets my mind to ease, same for my usual mechanic shop owner having a '77 *Before I began to do alot of the work on the vette myself : ) * What price estimates do you guys have? 250? I have the option with going for having the Hooker true dual kit 2 1/4 installed or having a custom 2 1/2 piping. What is the big difference? I do plan on going with sidepipes a few years from now! But for the mean time I'll stick with a true dual setup with no cats. Thanks for the help guys. I really appreciate it.

 

If the guy is going to put on the exhaust then why don't you get him to do the whole thing. If you are trying to save money by installing the headers yourself
( nothing wrong with that as that is waht I'm going to do ) then drive it there at
a non busy time fo the day 10:00 AM ? and don't step on the gas too hard. Just idling it's not too noisy but step on the gas....... :eek:

 

Depends on the engine...if the '79 is stock, this is true.

In a very high performance engine....... :crazy: :eek: you can hear it idling two blocks away.


[Modified by 67HEAVEN, 11:23 PM 4/6/2002]

 

This will likely be a drive that you'll remember (and talk about) for years. Take a sound recorder! Unless you've really scewed up and are shooting flames, you won't hurt anything (except maybe your ears :)) by driving sans mufflers. Have a nice trip :))

 

Thanks everyone. My major concern was burning everything during the short trip. I'm sure I'll have lots of fun. I haven't driven the Vette in 2 months and when I was driving it, the exhaust problems were at a bad peak. It'll be nice to finally get to drive the Vette and drive it with open headers.

 

my exhaust on my bronco popped the other day and im currently running open headers.......i love it......too bad its totally illegal :nono:

 

Meineke is a much better bet than Midas (the Midas in my town is owned by Bubba Sr. and run by Bubba Jr. and cousins - spilled brake fluid on my fender and refused to admit it. Took them to court, but lost). Meineke did a great job with my y-pipe. No problems.

 

I have to throw in my .02 here for a min. :) If I read the post right you are planning to use side exhaust at some point? I just did that on my 76 (with cats :D which are required here) and if you are thinking about it now why not just do it now? For just about what it is going to cost to have a custom system made up, between the material, pipes, bending and time, 2 mufflers, you could be into the side exhaust now. You didn't mention what headers you are running. Are they long tube or shortie block huggers? Long tubes will not work with the factory side pipes. I used chrome shortie block huggers. Let me tell you that the sound is great especially at about 80 :D
Anyway that just my .02, I can't see doing it twice. I could use the money spent doing it the first time on something else and get 2 projcets for the price of one.
JoeB

 

I agree, i would just go ahead and put the sidepipes on while you still can. you never know what might come up!

 

Very true. The urge to go with sidepipes just came into existence. I had already bought the entire true dual exhaust kit along with Hooker competition headers. The problem with sidepipes is the big failure during my last emissions test. In my area they only do a small sniffer test and that's only if I do get called to come in for testing. I bought the car last year in another state and moved it to IL so maybe I'll get away with it. Sidepipes were just way to noticeable if I had to do emissions. My logic may be strange but AT the moment it seemed like a good idea. Now if only the pipes fit like Hooker claimed they would...