EXHAUST
This is just going to review everything that I have done to my exhaust system and what seemed to work the best.
UPDATE: As of 5/21/01 My exhaust has been redone completely from just after the downpipe; new everything, along with a nice chrome tip to finish it off. Basically it is an identical setup though, just shinier and a different manufacturer of the catalytic converter.
This is how it looks right now. That is just a universal catalytic converter with a cherry bomb with the pipes dumping it out the side. I am getting this redone soon hopefully with stainless steel piping. That is 2 1/4" pipes from the catalytic converter back. It definately does not look pretty, but its effective. I tried a few different things before I ended up with this.
The first thing I did to my exhaust was replace the factory muffler with a 2 chamber Flowmaster and a nice flat Megs chrome tip. It sounded nice and made a little difference in performance. After that I learned how to use a pipe cutter, this is a very difficult to learn trade skill*, and bought myself some pipe clamps. Then I hacked off the resonator, which came just after the catalytic converter. This made very little difference if any. At that time I also replaced the catalytic converter.
So, now I have a new 2 1/4" catalytic converter and a 2 chamber Flowmaster. After that I took off the catalytic converter and ran with just the Flowmaster. This sounded horrible, and I mean like pure crap. Just sitting still reving it didn't sound too bad, totally flooring it off the line wasn't too bad, but anything else, like normal acceleration sounded so bad, too bad. Also I lost a significant amount of power off of the line. I must have lost about 10 lbs of torque or something, or more, I have no way of knowing for sure. So just a flowmaster is not a good idea.
After that I put the cat. back on except I used a Cherry bomb instead of the Flowmaster. The car sounded a little louder than it did with the catalytic converter and the Flowmaster setup. It also felt just as fast, maybe even a little quicker. So thats how I came to appreciating the setup I have now. It cost about $50 for some spot welds and to have the piping bent to come out the side. The cat. was only $60 and the Cherry bomb was about $16. And its equally effective as the Flowmaster ringing in at $80 or so just for the muffler itself.
READ THIS - the link provided will take you to an excellent exhaust study done by thrasher engineering on the GTP/GS supercharged GM cars. You can easily imagine what the results would be for our cars using some common sense after reading these articles.
Headers: No one currently makes a set of these for the 3100 engine. Here is a link to the Thrasher-ep site again, they just got a set of headers made for the GTPs and GSs. http://www.thrasher-ep.com/L67_htm/headers.shtm The headers in the pictures are not equal length primary headers, those are where the tubes all have an equal length coming off of the exhaust manifold. Equal length primaries are better to have, but the regular style that they have obviously is still effective as they can prove from their dyno tested results. 18hp at the wheels is definately good, very good.
...... almost makes me want to take the guy in my shop up on his idea to make a set for my car, especially since I don't have to have equal length primaries to see some good results. I never thought about it twice since I thought the only way to get real power was with the equal length primaries.
ALSO, follow tis link to http://www.gapower.net/images/pictures/headers/headerdesign.htm for some very good information on making your own custom set of headers. Its more for just choosing the design layout of them, you can't really make them without some "big tools".
* - denotes sarcasm
