Legal sidepipes......

[Wazza]

On the long list of "Things I wanted on the new Cobra" has always been Live Side Pipes.

I have since driven a number of Cobras with live pipes, and spoken to a couple of the very best exhaust experts I could find.

I've now decided to go with an under car system.

I basically listed the pros and cons to make a decision.

Pros..

They are in keeping with the original design of a Cobra, so they should be on the new car.



Cons...

I'm not really making an exact copy of the "original" Cobra, so I shouldn't put live pipes on the car just to make it seem like an original Cobra...if you know what I mean

They burn you.

They burn other people.

The sound can be almost deafening when you're "Giving it a boot full"..which happens quite a bit!!
And I'll be driving 20,000 Plus kilometres a year in the car...i.e. a lot of time to not enjoy that buzz in my ears.

They're illegal in Queensland,
and I get enough attention from the boys in blue without asking for more....making it a real risk of spending a pile of cash , only to have the car sidelined until I spend another pile to make it legal

[U]According to the experts I've spoken to.[/u]......A good under car "X" pipe, or "crossover" system will produce "up to 40 hp more" than a set of Side pipes, on a fairly high h.p. engine.

Although I like the strong sound of a set of live side pipes, I like the sound of the under car balanced system more ...a good under car system sounds more like a V8 supercar ....to me anyway!!


Once I gave it all some thought....I realized which way I'd be going.


Suits me anyway...and I guess that's how we all should make our cars.... i.e. the way we like it, not the way everyone else thinks it should be.


Cheers

[Aussie Mike]

I've built a few sets of sidepipes now and they are difficult to get down to legal noise levels. I think the best I did was on Bernies Cobra and it was about 98dB or so and still ran OK.

The pipes I build are modular. You can pull them apart to repack them or change the baffle type for different aplications.



Here's a baffle in the making with a cat converter. The cats actually muffle a fair bit too.





I've just finished a new set for my own car and I've got a new flange design for the baffles which I reckon is easier to use. Boxhead has got a set on his Cobra with the new baffle design. I'll try to post some decent pics up shortly.

With the swapable baffles I can have a set of civilized baffles for the street with cats and more muffling. Whilst not truly noise legal they will be emission legal and quiet enough that you won't go deaf. With about 30 minutes work I can swap them to a 3" straight through baffle for the track. The baffle design also lets me adjust the collector length to suit my motor whilst maintaining a nice outside apearance.



Cheers

[Rebel1]

Wazza, I agree with everything you said, except I'll expand on one of your comments, ie. "They burn other people"

I fear that one day, some young child will stand on some hot pipes to look into the car. The end result will be a severely hurt child, a court case with no defense or insurance company involvement, and a $hit load of legal fees and compensation.