Guest szlash280z Posted July 31, 2003 Share Posted July 31, 2003 geez, I just got off the phone with a guy at a muffler shop. he kept saying "a 3" system will end up hurting you in the long run... blah blah" and kept saying that you need some backpressure. I explained that it's a turbocharged vehicle and you want no backpressure so the turbo spools faster. "well, you will lose whatever bottom end you would have had..." I said the turbo Z doesn't really have much bottom end/out of boost power anyway because you get all your power from the turbocharger. needless to say, he won't be getting my business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drax240z Posted July 31, 2003 Share Posted July 31, 2003 Good choice, find someone who knows their job before handing them the keys to your car. The internet is amusing, since all the info is out there and easy to find, you'd think the people that should know it would use it. However, what happens more now is the consumer goes into a store/shop with more knowledge than the people in the industry in many cases! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest szlash280z Posted July 31, 2003 Share Posted July 31, 2003 ok, called another muffler shop. the guy there was much more enthusiastic and really wanted me to bring the car up there (I told him it was turbo already though it really won't be till this weekend) I said I wanted 3" mandrel bent pipes, which of course in J-ville there are no mandrel benders, but he told me his press bender cost $12,000 and doesn't flatten the pipes! I roll my eyes like that because I wasn't impressed. He quoted me $175 for 3" from the stock downpipe all the way back to the muffler, crush bent of course. Then he wanted me to buy a ricer muffler I think (anyone ever heard of Topline Exhaust Thunderbolt?) so I am thinking it's a muffler like one of these below: can anyone see that? I am going to go down there to see what his $12,000 bender can do to 3" pipe, if it's not bad then I can live with press bent for now. I keep spending too much on this thing and I haven't even started to swap the motors yet. I can always cut out the press bends further down the road and weld in mandrels when I make my downpipe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted July 31, 2003 Share Posted July 31, 2003 slash I'm tellin you dude, you can buy the sections of mandrel yourself then just pay a shop to weld it up. Tim240z clued me in to this. Places like Summit or Jegs sell short sections of mandrel bent pipe, in different bend angles, for like $20 a pop. Depending on what your'e doing you'd need 2-4 of them... if you've already got your downpipe then I'd think just two for the two sharp bends by the muffler. Keep shopping around dude, I found a muffler place that only charged me $60 parts and labor to do a 2.5" exhaust from the header back, I brought my own muffler though. The muffler mighta added another $100 tops, though I wouldn't have done anything fancy. I asked the guy if bringing my own mandrel bent sections would add to the price to weld them on and he said no, since I've now swapped out my old motor for a turbo motor and will be taking the car back to him for another exhaust. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cody 82 ZXT Posted July 31, 2003 Share Posted July 31, 2003 Take a look at JC Whitney for the Manderal bent sections. It's the same stuff and the rice is better. No reason to pay more for the same thing when you don't have to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest szlash280z Posted August 1, 2003 Share Posted August 1, 2003 well, I liked the people at the muffler shop. they didn't have any mufflers I wanted (all honda crap) so I am going to try to run a straight pipe and maybe a resonator or two. I don't know. I am just going to go ahead and get the 3" press bent system on there for now (it didn't smoosh the pipe too bad). I will have them make the back end connect to the straight section with a bolt flange so in the future I will be able to remove and attach some mandrels. Money is not really an issue here, but time is. I started the project over a year ago and I want to get it done this week. I have been busting my ass getting parts and stuff this week and I don't feel like waiting any longer! It will only cost me $20 to get a 3" DP made at the shop, it will be press bent of course but anything is better than the stock DP. all in all it would be about $200 for everything including the DP, but that doesn't include a muffler as I haven't found one I wanted yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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