These days, it's hard to find...
These days, it's hard to find an exhaust shop that will install a decent set of dual exhaust for a reasonable price. Fortunately, TTI makes installing great quality exhaust on your Mopar an easy job that you can do yourself!
Remember when you got your first Mopar? Chances are it wasn't a Six-Pack equipped Road Runner or Hemi 'Cuda, but rather a Charger, Satellite, or Dart with a 318 or similar low-performance engine and single exhaust. But even though our first cars didn't necessarily have a hot engine from the factory, we could still get the look and sound of a healthy V-8, if not the performance, by having the local exhaust shop install a set of dual exhaust and performance mufflers. Back in 1985, when we had our first set of duals installed on a 1970 Dart, the local shop charged us just over a hundred bucks in parts and labor. These days, it's difficult to find an exhaust shop that does much more than repairing OEM cars or installing giant Honda mufflers, so the days of a local shop installing quality dual exhausts are long gone. Fortunately, Tube Technologies offers Mopar lovers a great alternative to the exhaust shop, allowing us to install quality dual exhaust ourselves.
While we can't say that there are no good muffler shops that will install quality duals on your Mopar, we can say that in our experience the average dual exhaust installed by a local exhaust shop has several problems. First, most exhaust shops use standard tube bending equipment which crushes the pipe at the bend, decreasing the pipe's diameter. Though this procedure may not greatly affect the performance of a 318 with a two-barrel, non-mandrel bent pipes simply look ugly, and impede the exhaust flow, causing restriction and thereby decreased power, especially in a performance application.
There's nothing like a good...
There's nothing like a good set of dual exhaust to make your Mopar sound and perform its best. Instead of going to the exhaust shop, we ordered a complete set of dual exhaust from TTI that we can install ourselves.
Next, the local shops we've found usually don't have the proper 2-inch, or 2.5-inch flanges in stock to fit Mopar exhaust manifolds, so they generally just cut the pipe off and reuse the original, rusty, and often bent exhaust flange. The quality of the tubing is also questionable at most local shops as they tend to use inexpensive pipe to maximize profits. Additionally, instead of using proper, well-engineered hangers, the local shops commonly attach the exhaust to the car with self-tapping sheet metal screws right through the car's floor.
Fortunately, Tube Technologies, Inc. (TTI) offers a great alternative to the local exhaust shop, allowing us to install quality dual exhaust in the comfort of our own garage, or driveway for that matter. So when it came time to install dual exhaust on the '67 Barracuda we've been working on, we checked out TTI's website, ttiexhaust.com, to see what options they had for our car. What we found was that TTI has 2.5 and 3 inch exhaust kits for virtually every Mopar body style and engine combination, even our big-block A-body, whether equipped with factory manifolds or aftermarket headers. They have both H-pipe and X-pipe systems that are all made from 16 gauge, mandrel bent, aluminized tubing, and all of TTI's kits come with all of the hangers, clamps, and hardware needed to complete the installation, and are available with or without mufflers.
Since our car's engine is a relatively mild 383, we chose TTI's 2.5 inch exhaust system with an H-pipe and Dynomax Super-Turbo mufflers. Although original-style stainless exhaust tips are available from TTI, we opted for the more subtle look of factory appearing turn-downs. When our exhaust system arrived, we were certainly impressed with the quality of the products, as well as the packaging. Each section of our exhaust was individually wrapped in protective material, ensuring nothing was damaged when we got it so all the slip-joints would fit properly. We quickly got to work installing our exhaust system and were impressed with how easily all the parts fit in place. Equally impressive were the muffler hangers that are supported by the rear seatbelt hardware, and the tailpipe hangers that utilize holes already in the factory frame rails.
The TTI exhaust kits are available...
The TTI exhaust kits are available for virtually any Mopar with any engine and manifold combination. The kits come either with or without mufflers (we chose the kit with mufflers, which are Dynomax Super-Turbos), and are available with H-pipe or X-crossover systems. TTI even has kits that will bolt right up to most popular header or manifold applications.
We started our installation...
We started our installation by installing our muffler hangers, which involves threading longer bolts to retain the rear seat belts. This is a great method to mount the exhaust hangers as the seat belt attach points are reinforced with extra metal.
The mufflers can now be installed...
The mufflers can now be installed in the muffler hangers, and we can work forward and back from the mufflers to install the rest of the exhaust.
The hardware for the tailpipe...
The hardware for the tailpipe hangers on our Barracuda simply slides through this hole in the bottom of the rear frame rail, and through another factory hole in the inner side of the frame. This is a really trick and convenient way to mount the rear hangers, involving no drilling, even on cars that weren't originally equipped with dual exhaust.
The muffler hanger can now...
The muffler hanger can now be installed with the hardware provided in the exhaust kit.
The tailpipe hangers are pre-welded...
The tailpipe hangers are pre-welded to the tailpipes, and just slide right into bracket that is attached to the bolt placed through the rear frame rail. This is simple stuff.