Yet another exhaust post

[yosh18981898]

Well, after some searching on this board, I've decided that I want a flowmaster 50 with dual pipes straight out the back. It seems that to get this I have to have it custom made at an exhaust shop. From the search I did It looked like people were paying anywhere from $200-$400 for parts and labor. I started searching around today and getting estimates. The first place I went to was a Midas shop, I went in there and asked the guy for an estimate to put dual outlet with a flowmaster 50 on my explorer. First he looked at me, then he looked out the window at my explorer, then he just stared at me for about 20 seconds and then said "You want to put performance exhaust on an explorer!?" After he got over his initial shock, he told me that the last time he did dual outlet on an explorer (which was several years back) it took him 6 hours. So he quoted me somewhere around $500. Well, I continued my search by phone and so far I've gotten lots of quotes for about $350-$400.

I was just wondering how much others have paid for this and if those of you who have it could post pics of the way the pipe is routed. I'm thinking about just trying to bend the pipe myself, since I have a pipe bender.

BTW, I'll be moving the spare to a custom built swing-away bumper carrier.

Thanks

 

[spindlecone]

If your going to keep the Ex than go to a speed shop that can do a pro job or refer you to someone who do's,A shop that can mandrel bend pipe.
You can save some bux by going with a single catback system.
Duals wiil get you nothing Perf wise, matter of fact I believe a well built single will flow more exhaust than a dual.
Stay away from midas and mienike, they do hackwork IMO

 

[yosh18981898]

Yeah, I just found out about a performance exhaust shop about 3 miles from school here. I went down there today and for some reason they were closed. I'm gonna take another trip there tomorrow. It was kind of a mom and pop type shop with just a small sign out front. He specializes in custom exhaust. A bunch of exhaust shops refered me to him for custom work. Supposedly he's been here for a long time. Hopefully he'll give me a good price

 

[yosh18981898]

Well, I went to that shop this morning. He was a real nice guy and he definately knew his stuff. He doesn't use flowmaster though. He uses a muffler called a flowpro. He claims that they flow better than flowmasters do. He said that if I really wanted a flowmaster I could just bring one in. He gave me a price of 290 for parts and labor. I thought that that was a pretty good price, considering the muffler and tips come to about 130. The one thing that concerned me is that he doesn't believe in mandrel bent tubing. He said that he has dynoed several cars first with regular bent tubing and then with mandrel bent and he acheived the same HP and torque regardless of which kind of bends the tubing had. I'm inclined to take his word for it because he's got tons of pictures of race cars that he's built, he definately knows his stuff, and because all the shops that referred me to him said that he is the best in town. When I asked about mandrel bent tubing he said "You've been reading too many magazines"

What do you guys think about all this? should I go for it?

 

[spindlecone]

Yea go for it, if he had the very expensive equipment it takes to do mandrel bending, believe me he would use it, it's really a matter of splitting hairs.
If you are building a 25K engine would be the way to go, on our engines I would bet the advantages cannot even be measured

 

[dman726749]

why not, he gave you the best price, and everyone says he is good, might as well go for it....and who cares what type of bend your exhaust has, not many people will be looking under the truck to see if you have mandrel bent pipes or not

 

[celly]

Sounds like the guy knows his stuff. Repuation goes a LONG way. I got my catback installed by a guy with a similar reputation. Small, lesser known shop but his work came highly recommended on several local websites. Not only did he do an amazing job, but his labour was dirt cheap too.