Once you go V-Band you never go back... I got tired of fighting bolts in around the pipe on some of the systems that required crazy angles.

Agreed, I don't like flanges either. But you don't have much choice on oval tubing. And the V-Bands add about 3/4" on each side for the diameter of the tube. That's 3/4" less ground clearance for me.

Eric and I spent some time checking out everything and making a plan today. I'll be ordering up the parts on Monday. I'm going to go with the Verocious 4-bolt flanges, 3" oval tube (2 1/4" x 3 1/2"), and a couple of transitions. We'll have to cut the collectors off the headers, which means having them coated again unfortunately... But we'll be able to tuck things up to the point where the subframe should be the lowest point on the front half of the car. The mufflers will still be the low-point on the rear, but there's just no where for those to go, short of cutting out the floor (which I'm not doing!!!).

What about making your own mufflers? Eric clearly has the skills. Just use stainless steel for the muffler wadding like Magnaflow does. I bet you could use 0 gauge stainless steel wool, or I'm sure some company can supply you with what you need. I figure I'm going to have to make my own mufflers too as I don't want to cut up the floor either. Though I might be able to use a transverse muffler if I stay with the leafs out back.

There are other options as well, other mufflers which are not as tall as these. To be honest, at this point, I don't want to remake the whole exhaust system unless it continues to be a problem. We've got a lot of time and $$$ tied up in it. So I'm going to see how things are after this job where we gain clearance, and I'll dive into the back half later if we have to... The mufflers are about 3/4 - 1" higher than the v-bands were, so I have more clearance there. .

Understood. It sucks to have to redo or change parts on completed cars. Especially when a lot of time and care has been put into it versus just grabbing it off a shelf somewhere.

Good luck with it Bryan.

I picked TOW up this afternoon after Eric wrapped up the exhaust and other work. We didn't have time to get the new sections coated, so I will have to do that after the GG show this weekend. For now it's just sprayed with some high-temp paint.

We ended up using this flange:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psd2374305.jpg

That turned into a problem because there were only 3 available at the Vibrant dealer in the states. I do have to give them some serious credit for helping me out though. They are located in Canada, and they stock parts in Detroit. When the one I needed arrived there, the rep had it overnighted to Eric so we could make progress. Much appreciated!

Anyway, strangely the oval pipe is smaller than I expected. Eric though the same, and when he first saw the flange, he was worried I had ordered the wrong ones. ;)

This job ended up taking more work than we expected to get it right, but in the end, it was the right choice. I have plenty of clearance now, the frame rails are the lowest point. I don't have any pics yet, hopefully Eric took a few. But since we need to disassemble for coating, we can get some then if not.

One interesting thing Eric did was to cut off the collector housing from the tri-y headers and transition the 2 2" tubes directly into the oval pipe. To do this he cut up the original collector transition which worked almost perfectly, just a bit of reforming required. He also cut the header tubes to shorten them to raise everything. Again, more work, but better end result.

I know this sounds odd, but the sound of the exhaust is different now. Eric noticed it too. The car has always has a 'crackle' sound: little pops, raspy. That is gone now, and it sounds much smoother. We can only hypothesize as to why, but it's definitely different after driving it for a while...

Looking forward to seeing it when you take the pictures.

Sounds like a success. :thumbsup:

Sound is amazing......I changed the tailpipes on my car from straight OEM style tips to turn-downs between the rear spring shackles and rear wheel opening with the same 2.5" diameter and it changed the exhaust note quite a bit.

The bends/angles were also changed slightly but not enough that I thought it would be a significant difference. The changes took a lot of the mechanical rasp out of it from low mid-range to redline.

I'd had the previous tips for 20 years and really liked the sound but after a few months with the new tips I'd have to say it is an improvement.