I just bought a West Coast Cobra with a 460 c.i. 385 engine, and I'm waiting (impatiently) for it to be delivered. It has Vern Redel's standard 4 into 1 headers with a short collector, then a flange the muffler bolts to. It's like the one in those photo of a different car (
West Coast Cobra Dream Machine built by customer Mark picture 07). I like the sound, but was thinking about making some modifications to tone it down a bit, make it a bit mellower, and perhaps make it a bit more acceptable to those with 'sensitive hearing'.
- Regardless of whether I change the mufflers, adding a crossover pipe (a.k.a. H-Pipe) seems to make sense. From what I understand, it will result in lower decibels, a mellower and/or deeper tone at lower RPMs and make virtually no difference at higher revs. The challenge of course, is how to hook it up and route it. My thinking is to tap into the pipe after the collector and before the muffler in an area under the heat shield, making it less visible. It would probably need to be routed under the higher section of the oil pan or under the transmission but, either way, the centre section needs to be removable. Obviously smaller diameter tubing will make all of this easier, while larger may be more effective, but I can find no information on whether others have used the same size or smaller tubing on the H-Pipe as their exhaust pipe / side pipe. Any thoughts as to minimum size of the crossover pipe? Should I have some flex tubing in their somewhere, or is it okay to make it all out of rigid tubing?
- I'm also looking at swapping out the existing mufflers and going to Magnaflow 4" O.D. SS mufflers with a 2.5" core. I have a Magnaflow system on my Infiniti FX35 and like the sound as it's mellow - less harsh (at least to my ears) than FlowMasters and some other 'performance' mufflers. I also have reason to believe they flow pretty well. Magnaflow's 22" body (28" overall) is p/n 10436, and the 18" body (24" overall) is p/n 10426. There are heat shields on the existing pipes which may need to be re-curved slightly to fit the slightly larger O.D. but I'm pretty sure they'll work. Anyone have any experience with Magnaflow mufflers on side pipes?
Thoughts? Comments?