Kingpimp

iTrader: (1)

I am building my exhaust system without the truck in front of me. I am at school away from my ride, but I have another month until we are reunited. The truck is in Alaska, so in order to save on shipping costs, I am going to order everything now, choose the slowest shipping, and it should be there when I get back.

I bought Pacesetter LT headers which have an OD of 3," I need to retain some type of cat, so I was going to get the Magnaflow 59959 which are 3". The y-pipe will be fabbed from some 3" mandrel bend stuff from summit. They come in 180*U's so I am going to get 2 and cut those as need be. From there will be an undetermined length of pipe running to a 3" X-pipe. A little way after that will be a 3-2.5 reducer followed by two straight-through magnaflow mufflers I have had sitting in the garage for a while. The rest of the exhaust will be some type of side dump most likely. I haven't really thought about that since it is trivial at this point.

Here's my questions:

1. Are my assumptions about the pipe size and measurement correct?

2. What type of clamps will I need? I need a set from the header collector to the y-pipe. I will weld the rest of the system. What is the gasket maker copper sealant everyone keeps talking about?

3. Does this sound like it will work?

4. Is there a better way to do this?

I am looking more for answers than criticism, but that is welcome too. I would hate to order the wrong stuff and have to wait a few weeks until the correct parts arrived.

Also, no local exhaust shops will touch it since I am moving the cats from their stock location, which is why I am going to do this myself.

TigerFan187

iTrader: (1)

What are you long term performance plans if any?

Kingpimp

iTrader: (1)

In sig. That is about all I'm going to do. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

Kingpimp

iTrader: (1)

anyone?

jakebdb56

iTrader: (24)

best way IMO is to just get the pacesetter ORY and extend the ORY to go past the tranny x-member and weld the cats on both sides between the collector fitting and where it starts to go into the Y. kinda hard to explain without showing you with a pic, i'll see if I can get my truck on a lift and take a pic or somethin.
if you wanna fab a y yourself you'll need to get 3" TUBING and have one end expanded to 3" PIPE size (pipe is measured in ID and tubing is measured in OD). just weld the cats right after the collectors on the headers. as for clamps the best to use are an accuseal type clamp that's a stainless steel band with a bolt going through. I used the walker/dynomax 2 bolt clamps, they work awesome and they're only 8 bux a clamp, make sure you use an impact wrench on the bolts so you don't get leaks later on. I didn't really use the copper sealant on my system, I felt like I didn't need it using the 2-bolt clamps, if you use the 1 bolt clamps use it because with the 1 bolt clamps you wont get as good of a seal and the copper o2 sensor safe RTV will help with leaks if you have any. the sealant is easy to get, i got mine from oreilly's for like 6 bux for a tube. it says oxygen sensor safe on the label.

when its all said and done, buying the pacesetter ORY and modifying it is the best IMO since it's all bent and welded and has a flange already on it to bolt up to your existing stock exhaust flange. and the measurements all work and it fits for sure. sorry if I kinda rambled on, I know its a PITA tryin to figure out what's gonna work best, i wish someone had told me all this crap when doing mine lol.

jake

Kingpimp

iTrader: (1)

That was exactly the type of answer I was looking for. Thank you. You have given me a new route to look at.

jakebdb56

iTrader: (24)

no problem. lookin at your sig you have 4wd so it might be a little trickier to work with the ORY, but i've seen pix of them installed and the only other thing really in the way is of course the tcase but the torsion bar x-member you'll have to "go around" to route the exhaust.

Stoichiometric

iTrader: (10)

I will get you a picture of my set up tomorrow. I did almost exactly what you plan to do, I bought 3 180* bends and used them all. A picture is worth 1000 words, so I will explain tomorrow

Stoichiometric

iTrader: (10)

Here are some pictures, sorry about the quality. The second pic is my homemade X.