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I have a 1978 L-82 25th Anniversary 4 speed silver corvette. Everything on this car is stock. I was thinking about adding side pipes because they look cool. Would this devalue the car or not? Would anyone recommend doing this? With a numbers matching car, I am hesitant to make drastic changes like this. The car is worth about 21-23K now. In 2028, the 50th anniversary of the 25th anniversary edition, it might be worth 25-27K... Not sure tho.
Adding side pipes will not cause irreversible damage. Well, depending on which pipes you install I guess.
these cars are worth a fraction of some of the muscle cars of the late 60's and early 70's.
And likely in our life times it never will come close. As much as I love my Vette. And truly don't understand this. It is the truth.
Stop worrying about value. It's your car! Do as you wish!
keep in mind 2 things that really do matter however.
1. Everyone and your mother will burn their leg on these things!
2. You will lose power over a good under car system.
2020 Corvette of the Year Finalist (performance mods)
2019 C3 of Year Winner (performance mods)
2016 C3 of Year Finalist
Factory side exhaust require a little body trimming that is hidden under the rocker of you go back to stock. Its very minimal and wont effect value. You can skip that step and the pipe will just hang a little bit ower than the cover. If you go with the Hooker style they do not require and mods. Either way save your stock parts if you think its going to be a valuable car someday
You can sell it now and invest the money in a 5% CD for five years with the same result, these aren't great investments. I've been through this with other things, I found a pristine vintage Harley I just had to have. I hardly rode it for a number of years because I didn't like it, it was slow and a few other things... Sitting in my garage with a buddy talking about it one day and he said just make it the way you want. I said that would ruin the resale value, he said great your heirs will appreciate that when you are dead.... So I hopped up the motor and changed the other things and its fun now, and I did it in such a way that I can put it back to nearly original condition. Make it the way you want it and enjoy it, fun cost money so if you lose a few bucks then thats the cost..
Been running side pipes for 13 years, nobody has ever burned their legs on them.
you get heat shields to prevent it.
I love the side pipes. Never will I go back to under car exhaust.
everything is easier to work on and the heat from exhaust is no longer coming into the cab. And it just looks great!
2. You will lose power over a good under car system.
This does depend on the engine/exhaust combo.
Theres an episode of engine masters where they test header collector lengths you should see. The hooker style pipes can have serious advantages paired with the right engine setup. They tested a set of long 7/8 collector pipes that were very similiar to the sidepipe headers and found large midrange advantages from what I remember but now I need to watch it again.
I also installed heat shields so the only one to burn their legs is me when im working under the hood... they sure have made replacing rear end components a breeze and they are about to make swapping my trans to the overdrive unit much easier. As mentioned they are a lot cooler too (pun intended)
I did not have to trim anything to fit the exhaust on my 74.
Last edited by augiedoggy; Aug 5, 2023 at 09:25 AM.
I was in the same boat. Very nice stock Vette but hesitant to do any mods. I decided to rip the band aid off and drop in a 383, 5 speed stick, and side pipes. Just do it. Save all the pull off parts and fill up a Rubbermaid tub with them. The only mod I had to make was a small, not visible cut from the front of the passenger side rocker molding. I bought a replacement piece in case we ever want to go back to stock. Nobody noticed the car before, but now it's a big hit at the stop lights and local drive ins.
I may be nuts but I chose to start with a "parts" car just so I could make it my own, completely Guilt free... Of course I still get looks and comments from the other vette owner purists at car shows that must think I modified a Mona lisa or something..... For some reason there seems to be a bit of a true stereotype for ownerers of different types of car owners.
That said I understand the struggle.. the GF and I own a pair of mid 60s vw beetles which are pretty original and still in the desirable valuable year range thats been climbing in value.. I have a lot of work in restoring them but I keep finding myself questioning whether I should go with the "correct" one year only stock stuff or go the performance route... So far for my 66 ive chosen stock. other than a repaint by the previous owner and an upholstery change the 64 is also stock
Also if you can get over 20k for a 78 Id say sell it and buy the car you want to build...
BTW im running out of space to store what little stock component were left on my car when I bought it.. I have a turbo 400 trans about to sit in the corner next to the l48 on the engine stand.. both will very likely never end up back in this car as they are grossly inferior to what replaced them.
Last edited by augiedoggy; Aug 5, 2023 at 09:45 AM.
2020 Corvette of the Year Finalist (performance mods)
2019 C3 of Year Winner (performance mods)
2016 C3 of Year Finalist
They only corvette guys that ever said crap about my car drove complete piles of crap that looked like they came out of a field.....I love looking at a car that should belong in a museum just because I love the original look whatever the car. But if I own it its going to get driven like Duntov designed it to be...and if I break it, I fix it and do it all over again...speaking of which my crank should be balanced next week so I can start ordering the bearings and seals and such.
But back to you, I think a 25th anniversary deserves a pair of side pipes
Run this style side pipe. They look like factory, sound great and nobody ever gets burned.
Don't worry about resale time. There's ALWAYS somebody looking for a Corvette with side pipes.
Definitely spend the extra money and get stainless side pipes. The chrome will always rust over time. I run stainless Hookers with STS baffles. I wouldn't own a Corvette with out them.
I was in the same boat. Very nice stock Vette but hesitant to do any mods. I decided to rip the band aid off and drop in a 383, 5 speed stick, and side pipes. Just do it. Save all the pull off parts and fill up a Rubbermaid tub with them. The only mod I had to make was a small, not visible cut from the front of the passenger side rocker molding. I bought a replacement piece in case we ever want to go back to stock. Nobody noticed the car before, but now it's a big hit at the stop lights and local drive ins.
Beautiful car? What trans did you go with? Was any modification to the tunnel required?
Beautiful car? What trans did you go with? Was any modification to the tunnel required?
Thank you!
I went with the Tremec TKX wide ratio. The tunnel was cut to add a hole for the shifter stick to come up thru. The auto stick is in the exact same centerline in both directions so I just made some sharpie marks and cut to match the supplied inner boot opening. Did not need to add any metal, just flattened out the curves and strip caulked the seams to seal them. Once you button it all up it looks factory.
I second the comments about stainless over chromed steel.. I went the cheaper route with my stainless OBX pipes which were only $650 shipped new at the time.. Everyone thought they were trash because they were soo cheap but some savy guy decided to buy them, rebrand them and double the price and folks here couldnt say enough about them as "maximizers" ... go figure.
Any C3 after the mid 70s were extremely detuned as GM had the only solution of the day to meet emission standards - remove horsepower. Here's a 78 that originally had the whopping 175 HP L48... Now it has a supercharged 385 with hooker style side pipes. I get a lot more offers to buy my car now, then it ever did stock... I stopped saving my old parts, they are never going back on this car.
They are Doug's in the chrome finish. The chrome is nice and Doug's pipes are a gauge thicker than the metal used by Hooker. I used Vettepacks muffler inserts.
This was the only place where the rocker trim needed a cut to clear a pipe. Hard to tell once they are installed.
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Side Pipes
