Custom Exhaust for the 351W

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Custom Exhaust for the 351W

April 19, 2011, 03:34:25 PM

Well, its been a long road (literally and figuratively) putting my Bird back together after I scattered the 5.0 motor in 2005. I was so pissed off at the whole deal I stuffed it into storage for about three years and then my dad's shop got finished and we brought it to his house. I live about five hours away so I have to plan my trips there to work on it. Some may wonder why the hell I would do this but its where I grew up and have all my car connections (paint, motor, machine work, and exhaust) so it makes better sense to leave it there. The 351W has been built for awhile now and the TKO was in it with the 5.0. The exhaust on the car with the 5.0 was MAC long tube 1-3/4" primaries with 3" collectors, a hand built 3" off road X-pipe, and a MAC 3" cat back system for a Fox LX Mustang with the rear portion of the tail pipes extended 8" with 3" pipe (lots of grinding, welding, and filing to get them to look right).

With the 351W I figured it was time to up the anti and go big. I have a friend back home that builds race cars from the bottom up and he builds headers. We talked about what I wanted from the car and the possibility of a stroker kit later on down the road so we went with 1-7/8" primaries and a 3-1/2" collector. It took him several months to build them with all the work he has and he got pretty sick at one point but modern medicine fixed him up. The headers are done and I am headed back home this weekend to build the 3-1/2" off road X-Pipe and modify the old 3" X-pipe to accept cats so I can pass inspection here (visual only). Just thought I would share some pics of the headers in the car and I will update this thread as the exhaust comes along. This could take a couple of months as its time consuming and not cheap.

Here are a couple of pictures of the driver side:

I will put some of the passenger side in the next post.

Darren

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #1 – April 19, 2011, 03:35:45 PM

Here are the passenger pictures:

Darren

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #2 – April 19, 2011, 04:25:27 PM

Hey Darren, those look great! Very nicely done. They're quite a step up from the Mac's.

I was also checking out the Tubular K-member & A-Arms, studded AFR heads, fuel pressure regulators, adjustable brake proportioning valve...

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #3 – April 19, 2011, 04:49:38 PM

Thanks for the complement. Its a sickness I tell you. My dad bought the car new and I have driving it since I was sixteen so this has been a transformation over the years. The booster and MC are from a 95 GT so take a guess as to the brake package...I have no common sense anymore.

Once I get the off road X-pipe done it and the headers will go to Performance Coating in Oklahoma City (http://performancecoatingsokc.com/) to get coated. The X-pipe with the cats will get rattle can high temp black.

Darren

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #4 – April 19, 2011, 05:42:13 PM

looks like remflex header gaskets?

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #5 – April 19, 2011, 05:52:45 PM

I had to look those up to see what you were talking about and when I saw the picture on their website (http://catalog.remflex.com/FORD_Header_Exhaust_Manifold_Gasket_p/rf3043.htm) I understood why you thought that. The AFR heads have a 9 and 3 o'clock bolting pattern and the exhaust ports shroud a 1-7/8" primary. What appears to be a thick gasket between the 3/8" header is actually an adapter plate so the 2 and 8 o'clock pattern can be utilized to take advantage of the larger primaries. The adapters use high temp silicone to seal them to the heads (which is already on them) and I will use a standard gasket for the header to adapter plate once they come back from being coated.

Darren

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #6 – April 20, 2011, 03:05:13 AM

Hmmm, looks pretty nice...in other words..more pics lol

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #7 – April 20, 2011, 10:48:41 AM

Quote from: 86T-bird;358366

Hey Darren, those look great! Very nicely done. They're quite a step up from the Mac's.

I was also checking out the Tubular K-member & A-Arms, studded AFR heads, fuel pressure regulators, adjustable brake proportioning valve...

X2...car has some nice hardware added already. lol

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #8 – May 01, 2011, 08:25:27 PM

Small update on the exhaust. Finally got up to Oklahoma this weekend and my buddy was back from North Dakota on a two week break from work. We got busy building the 3" center section with the X-Pipe and cats for the old visual for inspection stickers we have here in this part of Texas. Mike took more pics of the 3" than the other but it was a bit more complicted with the cats.

Darren

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #9 – May 01, 2011, 08:26:43 PM

More pics:

This X-pipe was painted with high temp black with the exception of the cats as it will not be on the car that much. The other X-pipe and headers will be coated like the cat back with a ceramic coating that is polished.

Darren

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #10 – May 01, 2011, 08:32:11 PM

Pic of the car on the rack with the exhaust in it:

And one of the car outside the shop for those that wanted to see a full body shot:

The car has not been washed in five years just rinsed off so its not blinging like it can. Once it is running again it goes back to paint and body to replace the aftermarket passenger side fender (poor fit) and to install the TC front bumper cover, bumper support, and fog lights.

Darren

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #11 – May 01, 2011, 08:40:42 PM

Here are a couple of shots of the 3-1/2" off road X-Pipe. We got it welded up and the welds ground down with 80 grit paddle wheels for the 4" grinder. I am going to hand file some of the hard to get to spots and then work them over with some plumbers sand paper. At least that is what I call it as its about 1" wide and is used to rough up the connections on copper pipe that are going to be soldered. Worked really good at getting exhaust metal ready to coat.

At the shop sanding down the welds:

On the floor at my dad's shop:

Darren

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #12 – May 01, 2011, 08:41:04 PM

wow.. thats just convinced me to get rid of most of the mouldings on my 83, looks brilliant.

that exhaust looks like a nice bit of work too

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #13 – May 01, 2011, 08:43:26 PM

You can see from the pictures that the headers have slip on collectors. I originally thought this was going to be a good idea but Mike and I talked at the races last night and have decided to take the car back down to his shop and retro fit the headers and X-pipes with 3-1/2" s so the X-pipes are easier to remove for acces to the transmission and for ease of interchangeability. I am tied up for the next couple of weekends and Mike is back in the Dakotas for three weeks so it will be the weekend before Memorial Day that we get back to this. Once we get that done I can pull the headers and get them and the 3-1/2" off road pipe to the coaters.

Darren

Custom Exhaust for the 351W

Reply #14 – May 01, 2011, 09:29:35 PM

Great job that should flow for what ever future plans you have for the motor. Nice shop to its worth the drive Ive been on my back for the last month :)