[Jimbocobra]

The good news: I won the Koolest Kar award at Rookies last night.
The bad news: Dropped my car cover on hot side pipes and put some nice holes in it. I'll be cleaning melted polyester (and now solidfied like hard plastic) off the sidepipe all week.

I am going to be dropping in some AFR heads and a new cam soon. Should be good for 75hp or more.

I spoke with Ford, they said I am losing 20-40hp through the small 2 inch sidepipes. Rather than replacing then for a cost of $2,000, I was thinking about doing some exhaust cut outs between the headers and quarterpanel under the hood. They would have to be custom fabricated because there are 4 tubes under the hood and a typical Y-pipe is made for a standard exhaust system. I think the combination of all 3 should get me 100hp and still keep the compression ratio low, run on pump gas and sound cool.

Has anyone ever done tried exhaust cut outs on sidepipes - is it a bad idea?