1961 thunderbird exhaust3/10/2024 Very nice, mellow tone idling and cruising, but it roars under acceleration nicely! No reverb at all, and it sounds like an old car should. I nearly went with Flowmaster mufflers, but at the last minute decided on Magnaflow 4" round x 14" long, placed under the rear fenders where stock mufflers went. I had this done in '07 when I rebuilt the drivetrain and I have been very pleased with the results. Yeti Man wrote:I am running FPA headers, 2.5" pipes that exit in the stock location, with an "H" pipe behind the transmission. My gut feeling is that going from 2" to 2.5" would not do that, but I'm no engineer and would love to find a way to know for sure before going for it. lowering the back pressure below the level where the engine performs well throughout the entire RPM range. I do have concern about causing an imbalance between enhancing the outflow of exhaust gases vs. For my '63 I've been been considering going with 2.5" pipe myself, simply because so many performance exhaust components don't come with anything smaller than 2.5" inlets/outlets. Even if you don't have an M-code car, there's no reason any 390 engine shouldn't breath at least as well as they did. It seems to me that, unless one is going for concours originality, that going with at least 2" exhaust pipe is a no-brainer. Still, you don't want to reduce back pressure by too much because of engine cycle momentum factors, but obviously the 2" pipe did not do that in the case of the 390 motor. The engine will run better at all RPMs and produce slightly more horsepower/torque. Opening up the exhaust flow from the manifold pipes into a larger pipe is *exactly* what you want to do with the rapidly-expanding hot exhaust gases - up to a point. Heck the little 1964 1/2 Mustang with its much smaller 289 V8 came stock with 2" exhaust pipes. And just 2 years later, as far as I know, no one was using 1-3/4" pipe on any kind of V8. Obviously the guys designing the M-code Sports Roadster felt the same and insisted that at least their model would retain its original design with 2" pipes. By the early sixties 1-3/4" inch exhaust pipe was generally considered too restrictive for a high-powered V8 like the 390. Why Ford flirted with 1-3/4" pipe for the last half of the 1962 Z-code cars is a mystery to me. For most of the production run Bullet Birds had 2" exhaust pipe, then going to 2-1/4 for the 1963 single exhaust system. So, although it seems that 1-3/4" is often considered the common exhaust pipe size on Bullet Birds, it was actually only used for about 8 months on the 'later' 1962 Z-code cars. But again the M-code retained the 2" dual exhaust pipe. In 1963 Ford went with a single muffler exhaust system on the Z-code cars and used 2-1/4" inch pipe to try to compensate for losing the dual exhaust. Late 1962 Z-code models used 1-3/4" exhaust (the exact change-over date unknown), but the 1962 M-code retained its 2" exhaust pipe. As far as I can tell:ĪLL 1961 and early 1962 models used 2" exhaust pipe, both the regular Z-code and the M-code Sports Roadster. There is some confusion over the size of the exhaust pipe originally used by the factory for the Bullet Birds. I'm getting ready to replace my '63 exhaust and been doing some research. if the whole thing is welded, good luck getting that apart if you need to.just some food for thought. as for the cross overs and x style pipes, they are supposed to reduce noise slightly and sometimes add a couple hp or lbs of torque, but unless you have the exhaust made so it un bolts in certain areas, some maintnence can be a pain in the butt with the cross over there, so i'm not doing any cross over 's nice to be able to easily remove or dis assemble the exhaust.įor those who aren't worried about originality i'd suggest having the exhaust bolt together with a flange of some kind after the cross over.slip fit joints don't seal well and if they do they usually don't like comming back apart. i think 2 inch is ok for mostly stock or mild performance anything else should be 2.5. the welds either went soft or were not done right to begin with because it has alot of leaks at the seems. some one replaced it years ago with a replacement dual with cross over. Good idea.while we are on the subject as of now are FPA the only headers available for these cars and do they exit in the stock location or are they different?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |