Your opinions needed - exhaust

[1972]

Originally Posted by mudgutsandglory

i have a piece of advice for people who get a shop to bend their pipes, be there when they bend the pipes!! i had mine done while i was at work, and they suck!!! they look like a blind man welded them, the mufflers are clamped on, and the whole mess leaks like you wouldnt believe
later
Dan

I was at a shop once and did watch, and they did a horrible job. The guy who I go to now is very good. He own's the shop and is very proud of his work (not some punk who just needs money to buy beer and doesn't have decent work ethics). I trust him to do mine while I'm not there, and his work is flawless everytime. He even did a perfect job on my old pile-o-crap K20. Maybe you need to find a shop that you don't have to "babysit" while they work on your stuff? Not all shops suck.




784X4GUY - I pm'd ya



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[kevinr1970]

I wouldn't mind having a shop do the work, trust me. But the cheapest quote I got from any shop was just shy of $600. And it looked like they were going through a catalog to quote prices on each individual piece.
They also said it was all "crush" bent pipe and it would be all like the stock exhaust. If I wanted something like a flowmaster, it would have been more.
My exhaust was around $250 shipped and a frustrating day under the truck.

<RANT>
My '82 swd Blazer has exhaust that ends right after the mufflers, just before the rear-end. I called a bunch of shops to find out how much it would cost to finish the pipes over the rear and out the sides. EVERY one said they could only put it back to stock??? I called a local car lot that had a 78-82 El Camino with 3" mandrel exhaust and they told me where they had it done. I called them and they said they could only legally put it back to stock. I told them the lot said they had done their 3" exhaust done there and he said it must have been the owner doing them a favor, but they couldn't do anything else for me.
</RANT>
Anybody know a shop in the greater Seattle/Tacoma/Everett area that does "custom" exhaust?

[EricS76]

Nowdays, with all the regulations and stuff, muffler shops can get in serious trouble/fines for changing exhaust systems from stock. Like taking out a cat, or putting a dual exhaust on a truck that came with only one cat. I'm not even sure you can put a dual cat/dual exhaust system on a truck that only came with one cat. Now stuff from around the mid '70s and back, you can do whatever you want. But newer stuff no. I spent an hour telling a exhaust guy that the resonator on my dodge diesel wasn't a cat, and he never believed me till I did the exhaust work myself and took the resonator back to him so he could see it really wasn't a cat. They are really anal about stuff like that, but they have to be.

As for exhaust shops. If you want a good job done, you've got to do alot of homework. there are alot of bad ones and some good ones, and 99% of them are expensive and don't have a mandrel bender.