[s2k1]

This is my buddy's car. Had the 326 2 barrel with single exh and ST300 auto when he bought it. Just did a conversion to a 4.11 12 bolt posi with a Muncie M-21 close ratio 4 speed and next was headers and exhaust. We're starting a hot rodded 389 engine build too for those thinking about the 3" exhaust on a 2 barrel 326.
He bought some new Hooker Competition (not Super Comps) headers off of a local guy on Craigslist. Next he bought a set of 3" Stainless Pypes. He got the street mufflers. We installed this setup last week.

The headers do NOT fit well. Tube placement and routing, collector flange orientation, collector height too low whick makes poor ground clearance, etc. I'll leave it at that.
The clutch cross shaft fit in but was a major jigsaw puzzle to get in place. Next we found the clutch pushrod from the cross shaft to the throw out arm was a no go. We ended up cutting the arm off of the cross shaft and moving it over about .250" so it wouldn't interfere with the header. That would have been the end of it had been using a stock starter but it couldn't be that easy. He's using a Summit brand gear reduction starter and now the linkage hit the starter in the rectangle aluminum adapter piece. We found that there was extra material on the starter "bracket" so we disassembled the starter, mounted it in the vertical mill, and cut just under .400" off of the entire outer side of the starter bracket. When we reassembled, it fit perfect. We also made a custom heat shield out of stainless and chromoly, riveted together with airctaft hard rivets. The stainless heat shield also has a gold reflector material applied.

Here it is installed.



The exhaust turned out really well but needed some tweaking as compared to out of the box to fit better. We started with mocking up all the parts under the car to get an idea how they laid out and lined up. The first issue we saw was that the driver side "cut out" or exhaust relief area in the trans cross member didn't line up with the exhaust. It was decided that angling the tube towards the center of the car as it came out of the collector gave the most ground clearance and clearance between the exhaust and cross member. We decided to cut the x pipe at the tangent on the driver side. We experimented with angles and made it fit pretty well.

This shot shows the X pipe and collector extensions all welded up.



We used the x pipe as the primary locator. We put it as far forward as we could, so that the driveshaft cleared the exhaust when the suspension is fully dropped out. It should never see this condition on the road but we wanted it to fit perfectly and not bind under any circumstance.

This shot looking towards the rear gives another perspective on what we did with the left pipe between the collector and the x.



The under body "cavity" for the mufflers is pretty generous on GM A bodies so we didn't have any concerns with muffler placement in that regard. The mufflers front to rear location was mostly dictated be the length of the stub on the tail pipes in front of the rear end. After lots of measuring, we did find that the holes were slightly off in the muffler hangers, making the driver muffler sit at a different height than the right side. We modified the hanger to correct this.

Mufflers installed



The tail pipes, which are 1 piece from the mufflers all the way out the back were the most challenging to fit. When the tail pipes were fitted to clear the body mount just behind the rear wheel well, we found that the hump going over the rearend wasn't centered front to rear. This made the axle tubes too close to the exhaust on the front side of the hump. When the tailpipe assys were pulled forward, then they hit the frame and body mount. We also didn't like the looks of the straight tail pipes. From the back it looks OK. But from the side of the car there was way too much tail pipe showing. So, we hacked them off at the tangent of one of the bends behind the rear axle.
This let us put the tail "mid pipes" exactly centered over the rear end for maximum clearance. After cutting the tail pipes at another bend tangent, we slid the tail pipe as far forward as we could, which improved the bend lineups. That left us a chunk of 3" tubing in the middle that we had to use to connect the tail "mid pipe" to the tail pipes. This piece had a small bend in it from Pypes, maybe 10 or 15 degrees. I found that by rotating the tube, I could make it fit pretty well with the new layout. I adjusted the lengths, squared the ends, and tacked them in place.
I forgot to mention earlier that when we positioned the tail pipe, we angled it up in the rear so that it matches the body line from the wheel well to the tail panel. Then we cut up a 90" 3" stainless U-bend and used that to make "turn downs" at the back of the tail pipes. They actually angle down and back. It turned out just how we wanted and the exhaust tucks nicely. Best of all, the mufflers are the same height and parralel when looking from the back of the car, and the tail pipes are almost hard to see under there. Very "sleeper" looking.

Here are few shots of the tail pipes as finished.








We did this at my dad's shop since I don't have a lift. We put together a make shift "welding table" and this is me tig welding it all up with 308 stainless rod.




This is the car it sits under..........

[MrWrestlingII]

You make it sound easy... but I know it wasn't.

Nice looking work.

[Skip Fix]

Their F bodies tailpipes are two piece, makes it easier to install.

[A.J.]

Would love to hear a soundclip...

[2002Z4CSS]

Pretty sweet!

[rohrt]

So do I understand correctly that you have 3" pipes connected to a 2bb 326 right now?

Thats awsome.

[tripwr1964]

that looks great! and thks for the documentation too.

[s2k1]

Originally Posted by rohrt

So do I understand correctly that you have 3" pipes connected to a 2bb 326 right now?

Thats awsome.

Haha! It is still a stock 326 bottom end but has 092 heads with a Edelbrock Performer intake and "AFB" style 4 barrel carb on it. You might be surpised how good it runs versus stock with the heads, intake, exhaust, 4.11s, and the M-21 2 spd!

Dropping a 389 off today to get sonic checked to see how thick the cylinders are.