... the cat back portion of my exhaust is turning into Swiss cheese. low mileage car. Likely original. Thought I would just go buy a factory replacement set up but there were soooo many options, I thought I would asK a couple questions and see what I could do that might be a simple upgrade.

I see crossover vs no cross over y pipes. Any advantage to going cross over on a stock car?

I see resonators and non resonator options. Do I need resonators? Will no resonators make it too loud?

Thanks in advance for the replies.

 

Crossover on the rear Y helped mine with drone.

86 doesn't have resonators I believe.

The reproduction stuff from the usual suspects is pretty decent. I had that on mine until I went duals with headers after the engine work.

No cat will be a lot louder than catted.

 

I have an 86.
when i first got it i played with The exhaust, and heres what i found out.
1. Original exhaust, only one pipe on the mufflers are active.
2. Walker makes a good rear Y pipe for around $120.
3. There is a front Y pipe it necks down to one pipe, goes through the cat, comes back out and Y pipe into two mufflers that only half of the pipes flow.
4. The front Y pipe has precats, one on each Side of the engine.
5. You will not have true duals unless you do complete exhaust.
6. I put the test pipe in my y pipes, and without that cat, it was so loud, i had to wear ear muffs.
7. I put true duals on my car. I used bullet cats staggered so i could get them in the tunnel.
problem with that is one gets hot like it’s supposed to, and the other one takes a while.
8. I put performance mufflers on it to get some more power, and the ear muffs Werent good enough.
so i did some research, and found out 91 vert mufflers have 2 working pipes in each side, and were low restriction, AND Killed the noise and harmonics.
10. So I couldn’t afford any of those high priced exhaust systems and still afford to buy my 383.
When he was alive, Lingenfelter wrote a book. And in that book, he states that he uses the C4 exhaust manifolds because they cost very little power. He proved it in the dyno.
So i took my exhaust manifolds off, and ground out all the welding slag.
(ported them if you will)
and hooked everything back up.
i have a nice car with a trick exhaust that i can still hear the radio,

So here’s what i did;
i put true duals with bullet cats, 91 vert mufflers, and eliminated the precats.
it still goes 120 miles an hour, and Does it quietly.
i cannot conceive that my TPI 383 can ever use up all that pipe and Create a restriction.
So
ask yourself:
how am i going to use this car?
am i going to beat it to death? Or am i just going to go fast quickly, For my own amusement!
Pick one.
Its not that difficult. It’s a 35 year old car.
parts are starting to be a challenge to find.
it’s not worth $10,000.
don’t put $2500 bucks into the exhaust!
put seats, wheels, tires, sway bars, an engine, fix the trans, put a lower gear in it,
you got a lot of places to put that money.
put it someplace where you can get the most enjoyment!! A sound system?
intake? Ball joints? Shocks? Paint?
if you want them, i can sell you an almost new Y pipe and a ciuple pacesetter mufflers for $250 plus shipping

 

The previous owner of my 86 had replaced the mufflers and it droned horribly. I ended up replacing the mufflers with Walker QuietFlow. They are essentially the equivalent of the factory exhaust. Two tailpipes from muffler, but I believe only one is active.

Factory tone, NO DRONING. I'm running a stock rebuilt L98.

 

I have TPIS long tubes, right to straight pipes to corsa mufflers. No cats. Sounds bad *** and not bad at all on the ears.