Exhaust clearance issues - what are my minimum gaps?

[sigtauenus]

It's not the connection point between the hard line and rubber line that's the close interference with the exhaust pipe, it's that the soft rubber line is running "straight" down to the rear axle. To "bend" the soft rubber line away from the exhaust pipe, get a piece of coat hangar, cut it to fit the length of the rubber line, tape (or otherwise affix the coat hangar to the soft rubber line) and then "bend" the rubber line away from the exhaust pipe. The coat hangar/soft line should retain the shape of whatever bend you create.

Great idea, that would be a lot easier to do!

Understand that if you change out your headers "down the road", you're probably going to have to re-do a large portion of the exhaust pipe work you're getting done today.

Got it, and I do understand that. If I'm soon driving this thing enough for that to annoy me enough to spend the cash to redo the exhaust, I'll consider that a good thing. :lol

 

[buening]

IMO, if you change headers the only thing that would have to be modified is the welded collector reducer and head pipe that slides into the xpipe. If you get lucky, the header collector flanges will end up in a similar location and the head pipe can be pulled out (or cut down) of the Xpipe slightly to fill the gap. The weld at the reducer-to-headpipe may need broke and rewelded depending on the new exhaust angle, in order for your header collector gaskets to seal correctly.

If you raise the collector reducer 1" due to higher fitting headers, the system essentially pivots on the tailpipe hangers. Your tailpipe will go farther down in the valance exhaust openings, but it shouldn't be enough to really notice. I dropped and moved my motor back all after the exhaust was finished and all I had to do was trim a bit off the end of the pipe before the mufflers.

 

[sigtauenus]

Pics also posted in my other topic.

I need to get some pics of the how the tips look for you guys. They are farther out than some others (ok, Craig's), but I like where they are, he put them pretty much right on where I told him to.

Mufflers are clamped on both ends. The guy who welded it up said he thought it would be easier to get the system apart with both ends clamped if that's why I wanted the front clamped. After the discussion above about moving the front around if I have issues with it scraping, it turns out to be a great call since I may need to slide the back around slightly if it does in fact cantilever raising the front.