I bought a pair of stright side pipes for my 65 falcon with a 289 and headers and I am getting such mixed results from people saying i should use them and I should not.Some people say it will be so loud I will get tickets and everyone will be annoyed by them .Then others say it will be not too loud just when i floor it but for normal driving it will be fine.I want to see what you guys have to say cause where i live I never seen anyone with straight pipes but i do see pics of guys cars with them.
Headers going into straight pipes will be pretty loud. Cast iron manifolds going to straight pipes all the way back to the rear bumper are a little quieter, and that might be what your friends are thinking about when they say it's not that loud. A lot of custom cars that you might see with straight pipes on the sides are fake. The pipes are just for looks and not actually hooked up to the engine. Or they have caps on the turnouts and the exhaust is secretly routed back to the rear bumper.
Straight side pipes would look like shit on anything but my Falcon.Just kidding i have always liked them traditional or not.As far as the noise thing ,for some reason sbf are not as noisy as other V/8 motors so it may not be bad.I know it sounds crazy but my 302 ran open headers for months on the street and it sounded like a sbc with glass packs (no shit).I have heard people say it was cause it was only 10 to 1 that it was so quiet but i had an 81 olds 307 and a 86 305 that i tried straights on and they would wake the dead.I dont think of these smog gm engines as high compression ,so why are they louder.I recently put cherry bombs and 3 inch scavengers to the rear axle on the same full length headers ( to try and inhance backpressure on the strip), and now it sounds like my wifes new minivan.The point is you may be able to get away with it ,so go for it...
<TABLE id=HB_Mail_Container height="100%" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0 UNSELECTABLE="on"><TBODY><TR height="100%" width="100%" UNSELECTABLE="on"><TD id=HB_Focus_Element vAlign=top width="100%" background="" height=250 UNSELECTABLE="off">I did mine ma little different, I ran Sanderson block huggers through 22" glass packs. Then I butterflied them back to the side pipes or lakes as we called them. If you turned my car upside down it would look like butterfly wimgsand they dump out the sides. This gives the exhaust an unusually nice rap when you get on it and almost normal on normal use. Everybody said it sound cool. Rags </TD></TR><TR UNSELECTABLE="on" hb_tag="1"><TD style="FONT-SIZE: 1pt" height=1 UNSELECTABLE="on"> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
run lake pipes on my 53..hooked up..but i do have mufflers in the exhaust system just enough to be able to listen to the radio and talk while going down the road.
I've run open lakers on my 56 Olds with a57 371 and straight pipes on several cars never had a single complaint till I ran them on my 57 chev with a straight six, that sucker was rude (and fun)
I had straight lakes with headers on my 41 ford with a SBC drove me crazy, I slipped a bike baffle in each pipe near the inlet. Car still runs the same, and sounds good.
I run them on my 62' Buick Electra. Stock manifolds. Stock 401 cu.in. 4 brl.w/10.25-1 compression. Sounds like glass packs, possibly because of the small dia.(1 3/4") pipe. Realy barks at W.O.T. though. Running these for two years up and down the east coast without a ticket. Maybe just lucky, cause my foot is real heavy!
It might be alright around town to show off but if you drive it much your ears will be ringing after an interstate trip. they need some kind of baffle.
Most pipes are actually made to accept a baffle. The other variable is your engine. If it's a stock 2bbl, you'll probably be fine. If it's got a performance camshaft and a little compression, it'll be wake-the-dead loud. One simple rule with exhaust. Power = Noise The big catch with sidepipes is if you don't live in a large city. Cause if you do get a ticket for em, it will be plainly obvious if they're still there. Any town where the ticketing officer will be seeing that car regularly..... good luck
i run patriot side pipes... they have a built in cored muffler... running off a 318 i am impressed with the sound... a little goofy sounding when i first fired them up... but after a days break in... i was astounded with the noise they put out
I think the wise thing to do is get band clamps for the system and slam it all in there with the option of later muffler addition. Give it a shot and see what happens. There are a ton of options that run the gamut of what you are looking for. With a mild motor, you can probably get away with a collector disc in the header, but may need some sort of glass pack if it's wild. For a point of reference I run a 292 duration cam in a barely streetable sbc with 3 inch exhaust and only needed a 12 inch glasspack to make it perfect.
I ran lakes on my '51 with 9' glasspacks that came from a split manifold and hooked into a Flathead six. Sounded like a goddamn prop airplane. I liked it but it was too loud for 6 A.M.
Thanks for all the advice guys.I wondered if the sound would be quite a bit more quite if I stick with stock manifolds.I also wondered if there is any back pressure issues by running straight exhaust .
Im runnin straight pipes to bellfower tips with headers on my 283 sbc. Been drivin it daily like that for 3 years, no problems at all. As for back pressure issues, none really, sounds bitcin when i down shift though . But in those 3 years, ive only been pulled over once for the noise, and they let me go with a warning. Its perty loud, but no complaints from my neighbors
I'm running straight pipes on my 53 Hudson with a 455 Buick. No problems with the cops. Just don't act like an ass and draw attention to yourself and the cops will pretty much leave you alone.
some where ive seen a baffle type part you can bolt in between your headers/manifolds and your str8 pipes. not sure where i saw it. some mag i think. look it up they got diff. parts to slide in the baffle to change the tone.. might be worth a look.
run 'em until you get a ticket. personally I found straight pipes (especially when they exit close to a window or under the car) on closed cars to be a little tiring after a while. not so bad on an open car.
They look so cool and that is mainly why I want to use them.They also to me make under the car look way more clean without pipes all under.The other thing I am wondering is the best cleanest way to mount the side pipes.I have some chrome brackets I bought .Any ideas sorry for dumb questions but where I live there is no style at all just all new fancy shit so not much advice from anyone .
I did a variation of side pipes but tucked most of it up between the body and the frame. Due to engine sizing and hp level, I ended up running 3" pipe with Walker Bullets dumping before the tires. At idle its got a nice sound... but once you get on it she'll bark LOUD!! The output of the engine has alot to do with the noise you'll get out of it. With a little 289 you should be laughin... Go for it! Just don't drive like an idiot and attract the wrong kind of attention...
my 61 chevy wagon has a 235, fenton headers, straight pipe out the back and it was way cool at first. now it's pretty annoying.
it's only a 289...it shouldn't be that loud because of the small cubic inches...altho, it does have headers on it. my pontiac 287, has 2.5" straight pipes (cast iron manifolds, no mufflers) all the way to the rear bumper....and there are cars with bigger cubic inch engines, with mufflers that are louder than my car is. my car has lake pipes on it, but they are not hooked up...they're there just for looks. and while we're on the subject...why are in line 6's so freakin loud with straightpipes, or split manifolds ? small cubes...but tons of noise. actually, i like the sound of a split manifold /straight piped in line 6.
Yeah - I'd like to know what does that.... My little 235 with cast iron headers and short straight pipes sounds really great at idle and deceleration, but the moment you crack open the throttle it turns into some violent monster. And after 2500 rpm it sounds like I'm in a dogfight with machine guns going off under my seat. What a rush! Never heard this sound from any other engine on the road, inlcuding Harleys. Fun for a couple of weeks, but ended up mounting 12" steelpacks.
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