CFHay

Could them being made of inconel play a part in that sound?


Also a bandaide fix for the photobucket problem is to use the photobucket hotlink fix extension, I'm sure it will be patched at some point and not work but at this time it allows us to view hotlinked photos.

Phimosis

Fantastic build! Sounds and looks amazing!

I ran into this thread because I was watching a Madram video of Southern Rock Racing and one of the buggies sounded like a small block with 180 headers and I started googling to find him. This came up along the way and I love Vettes, so had to check it out.

Here's the 180 headers on a rock buggy, he comes on at 12:02:

Luwi67

Hi Matt,
Great thread and great work, your obstacle jumping is second to none. I love the way it all turned out.
Have you considered a 2 into one collector at the mid-pipe and running single exhaust instead of the X-pipe. I ask because I fabbed 180° headers for my 67 Camaro gen 1 smallblock some years ago and ran strait dual exhaust with tails exiting together and it sounded awful. I had two mufflers to work with, Spintechs and Dynomax Ulta-flow. Both were horrible.
I had considered the X but felt 180's didn't need it so I ran 2 into 1 and a single muffler and tail and got the sound I was after. In my case the Ultra flow sounded better than the Spintech.
When I built my collectors I arranged my primaries so the pulses had a rotational pattern through the collector. Like a Gatling gun.
Here is a short clip, just a stock 350:

Back near the beginning of this thread there was mention of Morgan/McClure racing Kodak #4 driven by Sterling Marlin. That car never ran 180° headers, in fact, NASCAR never allowed the use of them or special firing order camshafts. McClure brought Boyd Butler (Dr. Gas) in to design a legal exhaust for them. Boyd brought his oval tubed X-pipe. It gave the team 4 extra horse power and that was enough to dominate on the super speedways.

Tinmatt

Thanks, much appreciated. I did the same "Gatling gun" pattern on the 180 degree headers I built for my Howe chassis car,


And was aiming for the same result for my Z06. But the flat 4 into 1 collectors did not allow for it.

I have not yet considered a 2 into 1 collector as the C5 chassis does not lend itself to a single exit exhaust very well. I would be interested to see how you made it happen under your first gen Camaro.

The X pipe certainly did not live up to my expectations. I have found that the old school way like the GT40s ran back in the Ferrari dominating days to give the best sound. I am currently happy with the sound through the factory Z06 mufflers but do wish to try some other options. I had some ideas but after trying a set of GHL bullets, I need to revisit what I thought would make the music I am after.

Very interesting to hear the story behind the #4 Kodak car. I had seen mentions of Dr Gas and his contributions but did not know exactly what they were.

Luwi67

Yeah, the GT40 with it's short exhaust sounds best. After my shock and disappointment of my duals I did some research and thought maybe it was the long length of the rest of the exhaust that was giving the note such an awful sound. I stumbled onto some videos of a front engine race car doing some Swiss hillclimb racing with the sound I was after. This car was running 180° crossover headers and a single exhaust exiting in front of the rear wheel (NASCAR Monte Carlo). I gave the single exhaust a try and I was so relieved the 3 months I spent fabbing these 180's in the egine compartment of the 67 wasn't wasted.

I have an old thread on the Team Camaro, unfortunately the photos fell to the photobucket deal. This is the link: http://www.camaros.net/forums/33-cam...67-camaro.html
Definitely not as comprehensive as your thread but, there is a few pics.

I keep imagining your car at an muffler shop up on a lift and when the tech walks under and looks up at your exhaust his head explodes.

P.S Sorry my video link attached as a giant video, it was supposed to be just a small highlighted link.

nkautz1

This thread is awesome. I caught the 180 header bug after hearing the gt40 and then realizing I had (almost) the same engine in my lemons race car (Ford 5.0). And I as well noticed a huge difference in the 2 pipe config vs the single or x-pipe. The 2 pipe sounds like a raspy 4 cylinder but the single pipe version sounds good and get tons of attention. My setup is different than the typical , I did 4-2 on each bank like tri-y's , combining the middle 2 cylinders on each bank into 1 collector and and the outer 2 into another. It's simple and That lets me deal with fewer pipes as the system travels to the final pair of 2 - 1 collectors where the crossover occurs. I still have some things to try , I'd really like to discover a way to make the 2-out sound better. I'll link to some videos on my youtube channel for those interested.

This is the odd sound with "true duals" :
and this is with x-pipe installed:

CFHay

The difference in sound with the X pipe is crazy

NSFW

I've always wondered what caused the buzzing noise from ricer exhausts... I still have no idea but it's interesting that even a V8 can do it too. At least the x pipe cures it.

0Deity.Motorsports

The WOT sounds from no X pipe from my own setup has to be heard in person. It is intoxicating. I still can’t capture it half way decent with an external mic.

1/2 throttle can be very bland for sure. Just like OP stated with his own experience.

nkautz1

You can't say how good it is and then not follow up with some new footage The sound is never gonna hit any microphone the same way it hits your eardrums.... there's always gonna be a quality gap there, but that applies to any vehicle/video. I always use adobe premiere and vst plugins to clean up the audio , remove clipping , wind noise, add compression, etc... helps a lot. I guess yer gonna have to just pick your favorite flyby's or whatever and throw em up. If you ever make your way to the sfbay I can do some recording and I'll even give you a good mic you can keep.

0Deity.Motorsports

Some on here doesn’t like some spirited street driving, freeway entrance type of thing.

I’ll be up there sometimes this year and I’ll definitrly hit you up. Yeah I’m not good with this whole audio video thing.

First half is with X pipe and 2nd half is without crossover.

Video from in car is even harder to capture. A buddy of mine with C7Z with traditional headers was driving. He wanted to hear the differences from the driver’s perspective. He loves it that’s for sure.

Tinmatt

Very intriguing that the C5 and C7 seem to sound better without the X and the 5.0 in the BMW sounds better. Nick, do you have any pictures of your headers and exhaust? It would be interesting to compare.

Also, a heads up. I've been considering selling my Z06 for a while, way too many projects I want to do and it is taking up space and not being enjoyed like it should be. Expect a for sale thread for it soon.

NSFW

How critical is it to have 180-degree merges, versus just having equal-length runners and whatever merge sequence is easiest to fabricate?

My intuition says that equal length runners should be enough, but it's not like there's any reason to trust my intuition here.

smitty2919

In for any future updates.

Tinmatt

Okay, it took way too long to get back on this project but the new mufflers are finally done and..... I don't know if I like them.

The new mufflers are a bullet style. Straight through perforated core wrapped in 1/4" of fine stainless steel wool and then an inch of a ceramic wool insulation. 2 1/2" I.D., 5" O.D., and 9" long.

After getting them done, I bolted them on behind the X pipe that did not work well in my opinion with the factory mufflers. I was bound and determined to use the X pipe and I hoped it and the new style mufflers would make the proper music. Once again, I was wrong. The nasty trumpety noise was back at 2000rpm. It's a very odd phenomenon, it goes as soon as it comes. Lasts for only a narrow rpm range, maybe 50rpms and only while accelerating. I could not get it to make the same noise at any steady state rpm. But every time I passed 2000rpms while going through the gears it barked at me like an annoying jack russel terrier that wanted attention and badly.

So the X pipe is no more. I cut it out of the exhaust mid section and set it on the bench thinking I could use it elsewhere on another project. The mid section was welded back together sans X, reinstalled, and ready to make better noises.

The more I drive it, the more I'm growing to like it. Not sure if I'm getting used to it or if the packing is breaking down a little. I recorded a three gear pull to hear it from outside the car and I'm still undecided. I'll give it some time but at this point I'm thinking the "bypass mod" on the factory ti mufflers might be the way to go. Anyways, here's how it sounds as of now.

Rob 02

Best I've heard. You have really spent time perfecting this system.

Vette97sc

Sound great

feeder82

My honest opinion, doesn't sound like a chevy any more. Got that f1 sound to me, not my thing. Too high pitched and raspy. But a beautiful system way to nice to just give up on.

acroy

pretty freaking sweet! thanks for updating. Would like to hear more, outside the car, maybe a fly-by

smitty2919

I agree, an outside video would be great. The last video has too much disturbance to accurately portray the tone.

Always nice to hear normal drive-by since a lot of setups sound good at WOT. It's getting the tone right in normal conditions that is tough.