New Exhaust
After years of cutting hacking and welding the "original" aftermarket exhaust, it was time to make a fresh start. The old system was a combination of 2" and 2 1/4" tubing with a hollowed out cat and a glasspack style muffler. It had crushed bends with lots of restrictions.
New Specs:
2 1/2" tubing - full length
Flowmaster Hushpower II muffler - (409) Stainless
Mandrel bends
The 409 stainless welds nicely with the aluminized mild steel tubing with regular wire and gas. The sound is much more mellow and the raspyness is gone. The noise level at high RPM is noticeably reduced, but is still pretty audible. Once I get some actual noise data I will post it.
I decided to run the exit on back to just in front of the rear LCA for two reasons. I wanted to get the exhaust gasses a little further back so they had a chance to escape from under the car and not end up in the cabin. I also wanted to keep the interior sound down as well.
The system uses three factory hanging points. The two at the muffler in the middle of the car and one right at the turndown in the rear. That seems to stabilize it pretty well and there seems to be enough wiggle room to keep it from hitting anything.