Side Pipes

[Aussie Mike]

I delivered my first set of sidepipes the other day and I was pretty proud of how they turned out. This time round I spent a fair bit of time on working out better ways to do the flanges and ways to cut down the ammount of machining required. They are pretty labour intensive to build. I'm a bit of a perfectionist so they took a bit longer than I thought initially.

My wife has since made me promise not to make any more till after my car is on the road.

I'm currently working on some 3" baffle tubes with no cats. It takes me about 20 minutes to swap them over on the car. I reckon they will be just the trick for track days. I'll need them If I want to get anywhere near the level of noise produced by Garretts car



Cheers

[Rebel1]

Hey Mike

Howd ya like to move to Queensland?

You do some nice work

[ledge]

Hey Mike ,
Those pipes look fantastic , Will you be HPC coating them or just painting them and do you guys need to put the protector over them like on truck stacks ? .
I have been trying to find someone over here in SA that wants to do my exhaust but every one seems to want to do the easy job like fitting a muffler to a falcon .
I was chatting to a guy the other day that sound keen so hopefully all will be well and he can get stuck into it as im hanging to here my motor fire up .

On another note i got a shifter for my t56 from gm motorsport (link attached ) that goes in the rear hole but they have spun it around so it bends forward and it is about 2 inches further back than your shifter mike so if anyone else has the shifter is in the wrong spot syndrome they might want to check out these shifters . Oh they fell great to and it might save mike making up 50 shifters



http://www.gmmotorsport.com/

[Jase]

Originally posted by ledge

might save mike making up 50 shifters

Which will help when he's making up those side pipes for everyone! They're bloody nice!

Just wish I had a car to put them on - did some "calculations" today - looks like I won't be getting started for at least 18 months now - and it appears that a simple garage at the front has now turned in to the demolition of the front half of the house and a complete redesign of that half. If you're gonna do something, do it right!

[Aussie Mike]

Hi Ledge,

I'l HPC coat my pipes silver to match the polished alloy roll bar and quick jacks.

I'll weld some threaded bosses on the backs of the pipes out of sight that will let me bolt on a set of heat shields.

Phil's used a my design and his pipes don't get that hot on the outside of the muffler body. They get hot at the tip but the muffler body seems to cool quick enough that you can put your hand on them soon after stoping the engine. Phil wil probably get on here and tell you how hot they get.

I'll probably need heat shields to get through rego. I've also got a 4 year old that I want to keep out of harms way so the heat shields will probably stay on till she knows to keep clear of them.

The GM shifter is pretty much the same as the B&M ripper or Pro 5.0 shifter available for the Camaro Firebird. It would be a big improvement over the factory shifter 'cause the Holden setup is complete crap.

Cheers

[NASSTY]

Originally posted by Aussie Mike


I

My wife has since made me promise not to make any more till after my car is on the road.

Mike you better get that cobra on the road fast before the mob breaks down your doors!

[justbetter]

Top job again, but where is that Mike Manufacturing Dark side logo ???

Come on lad its all about self promotion...

Actually i recon theres plenty of length there for a Better Bathrooms & Kitchens logo

[pneall]

Ledge,

Mikes design worked well for me . Not too loud but loud enough to know it's an eight and your serious. Should scare the ricers.

Highly recommend HPC coating at Leongatha. I went for black to match the car and so they wouldnt stand out .

I have 2.5" perf tube after the cat and the tube is wrapped in sound deadening material (defillipo) then wrapped in heat shield.

Haven't run any actual temps but they seem to cool down fairly quickly??

Would still burn if you touched them straight after a drive, havent so far and hope to keep it that way.

No ones allowed to get in car unless they are wearing long trousers so that gives you a few seconds if you forget to step out wide.

The really dangerous part is where the pipes come out the guard ,thats where you need shielding.


Phil

[boxhead]

Hey there mike, the pipes sure are looking good.

You better hurry and finish that car of yours as I will be ordering my pipes either late january or early Feb.

You know that something is wrong when you look forward to holidays just so you can get back to work on your car.

[David Hodgson]

[quote]Originally posted by Aussie Mike


I'm currently working on some 3" baffle tubes with no cats.


Mike

Those pipes look great.

If you don't mind sharing your secrets, are the pipes with cats a straight through type muffler?

The 3"baffle tubes your playing with, are they an interference type?

I'm running leaded(lrp) and no cats, when I built mine with 2" densly perforated inner pipe - 4" outer, glass packed, I can't get them below 106dba. With a rod up the centre with some angled baffles suspended, 102 dba is best i can do.

I'm looking at changing them, they sound great, but after a day's outing the ears are ringing. I'd like to get down to about 95-97dba.

Any suggestions?

[Aussie Mike]

Hi David,

I use a 2.5" perforated tube for the baffle wrapped in stainless steel swarf and then fiberglass lagging. the stainless breathes a bit better than the fiberglass allowing the pressure wave into the packing. The stainless also protects the fiberglass from being blown out the tail pipe or shoved down one end of the muffler.

I have to thank Scott for putting me onto the stainless swarf. I've been running it in my bike mufflers and it holds up much better.

A trick I've seen to knock a few dB out of the straignt thru baffle is to crimp the tube a little at a few points along it's length. Just squash it with a pair of vice grips or similar and it only needs to be squashed 1/2" or so. The crimp causes the gasses to deflect and slows them down a bit. It also forces them go into the packing a bit more.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

[BMK]

Mike

Again a great looking set you have there..

Seriously, the pipes look great. Hope to catch up soon and check them out there at the garage there.

... and your wife is telling you to get back to work on your own Cobra, what have you promised here..

Bernie

[Adrian S]

Great work Mike. I bet you can't wait to shove some gases through your own set (so to speak).

I rang up RMC to check out the price of their side pipes which I saw on Tony Cram's cobra. I've got underbody clearance problems so am looking at running active sidepipes even though I'd prefer not. I wanted to have the heat shield on it as I have young children. The RMC ones appeal to me as the heat shielding is snug to the pipe. Anyway...cha-ching $2800 a set (polished 316 stainless with cats) . Kym reckons they won't let any more than 90db out so perhaps these are not the pipes for me ! He also said that they hand wrap about 20kgs of fibreglass on each pipe so they are darn heavy.

Think I might look at making some up myself but probably sub out the tig welding once I've tacked it. Question for you guys who run HPC coated pipes...how do they handle stone chips ? Does the coating chip off leaving bare steel to rust ?

Cheers,
Adrian.

[750hp]

Beautiful work Mike. I can't wait to see how your car looks when you've finished it.

[BMK]

Adrian

I had a set of HPC coated pipes on a nother vehicle and stones (small) did not worry them.

Don't get the pipes coated by Jethot in Castlemaine. My coating from them is a mess. I went for Jethot as they were closer to me thinking it was a similiar coating.

They totally stuffed my pipes including the inner fibreglass. The coating as peeled off on all welds and up to 10mm either side of a weld etc. etc.



Just my $.02 worth on coatings..

Bernie

[BMK]

Adrian



I was just looking at the photos in your gallery, checking your progress when I saw the photo of the pedal box.

Will you be able to drive with the accelerator pedal above the chassis there. I cut the chassis here and layed the side over at 45 degrees and then welded two triangles in for strength.

This was to allow my foot to lay over (and comfortably) on the pedal. (make sense?).



Just a thought as the side of your foot will be pressed against the chassis/carpet.

Bernie

[Aussie Mike]

Thanks for the kind words on the pipes. I get a kick out of making this kind of stuff for the car.

Adrian,

There's a bit of weight in these pipes too. I took them on the plane with me to Sydney and all packed up in their box they weighed 26KG. That was less the stainless and fiberglass packing but it would probably only be abother 5KG for that.

90dB is very quiet. I reckon they would have to be pretty restrictive to get the noise down that low.

Bernie,

I won't be going back to Jet Hot either. I wasn't too impressed with the finish on a set of pipes I built for my bike.

I hope to post some pics of my current project shortly. It's more fuel system stuff. I'm machining up a set of fuel rails to replace the stock LS1 setup. I'm going with all AN fittings on the lines and a full return setup instead of the single line system the stock LS1 uses.

I picked up a very nice Serd fuel pressure regulator and that will be attached directly to the rails. Thanks Phil for the ideas.

Cheers

[Adrian S]

Hi Bernie,

Regarding the pedals....since this picture I've re-spaced the pedals as well as lifted the height of the brake and clutch. Problem was on the long hauls, I couldn't rest my left foot anywhere. Now I can tuck it under.

I also moved the gas pedal left a bit and was more than comfortable up & back to the nationals. Before this it was a bit too far right as you suggested. Also changed the pivot point to give me more thottle control. I do remember seeing your cutout mod to create foot room. There really is just no end to how much you can play with this stuff - all good fun.

Cheers,
Adrian.

[BMK]

Adrian

Sounds like you have it sorted.

I know after doing some 20,000 in the last 11 months the footbox area is very important..

I can also tuck my foot under and it makes for a little more comfort. When I first saw the photo (original set up) I thought that was a little like my old set up and it was hell on my right ankle

I also dropped the floor similiar to the Midstates. I sat in one at the Run N Gun and Bob Kallio was really pushing the comfort thing and the R + D that he had done.

So I came home and copied it. Sounds like it has a similiar effect to raising the pedals.

Cheers

Bernie

[justbetter]

Bernie if you take those big RED shoes off im sure you find it easier to opperate your pedals.