Hi,
You've hit on one reason why some of us folk like "custom exhausts" from
the local muffler shop (or mufflah shop as we say in Boston). The stock
system flows pretty darned good right to the muffler and then it's
restriction city.
There are a couple of things that you can do to make the stock muffler
flow better.
One idea is to take the pipe (early) or pipes (late) that go through the
muffler body and hack off the cap(s)... then you weld on some tube out the
back. Voila! This setup is pretty loud, though. But you'll probably pick
up at least 5 HP for a motor that is running well, maybe a tad more if
your motor is tuned/warnmed up.
The only other thing that works is to replace the stock setup with a
"turbo-style" muffler. These would be the mufflers that GM used on the
Corvair (Unsafe at any speed!)... they have way less restriction than any
stock muffler out there, but because of the chamber design they are
actually pretty quiet when you aren't trying to modify the shape of your
firewall with the accellerator.
A lot of folks make fun of the muffler setup on my race car because it's
so quiet, but the setup works really well. In fact, It's time for a new
one and I'll probably get the exact same setup on the street car.
The only other options that I'm aware of are the twin-pipe systems from
the various manufacturers - Monza, Falcon, Ansa, etc. But for a lot less
money you can get a generic turbo muffler and custom single pipe (BTW, I
like 2.5" as opposed to 2.25") setup and you'll def. get some more ponies
to the ground.
Also note that all the mufflers that you get for these cars are not
exactly the same as the stock pieces from years past. So the inlet pipes
are probably not the same exact spec as the manufacturer's pipe with
respect to the amount/number of perfs.
IMHO - you can't beat custom.
rml
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