My front Y pipe has some issues, it has this ridiculous double wall setup, the inner wall is completely separated on one side and the outerwall is cracked pretty bad, right above the O2 sensor. And the right side is cracked too! Must be from bottoming out.

Looks like Ecklers sells a stainless front Y 86+ without precats. I'd like to know who makes it so I can look into it or shop around. The Dynomax piece says it's only aluminized steel, aka crap. The magnaflow pieces I've found only come with precats. I'm looking for 86+ because I think I want to replace my cat as well and the 3" round should be easy to clamp to a generic cat.

Of course then my cat is now welded to the rear 86+ y pipe with some goofy short piece in between I had welded on in a hurry, so that would have to be cut all out too. So then I look at doing it how I've always wanted with a single oval 3" equivalent out the center, including cutting up the center of the rear bumper. Hell why not do the motor while I'm in there.

Do you have a friendly smog guy? this is when I would consider a dual exhaust... or at least an LSx conversion...

anything but a y-pipe... how retro.

In all seriousness, call McJack up in Santa Ana. They do headers and such. I know he can bend tubing. Call him, send him my love.

I think I had him weld something at one point, I hope it wasn't the rear hangers that later broke off again.

I guess there are no oval tubing that is bent in the short axis, so the single exhaust won't work, it would have to be round on those areas which takes all the cool factor out of it. I still want to keep the single center cat to keep to keep the stock configuration for smog.

I would need about 6 ft of tubing that bends up/down, not sideways. I guess that's not a real high demand item.

This is the stainless front Y, midamerica not ecklers. They say stock was 2.25", I guess with the double wall, where this one is not, and makes it 2.5". With crush bends, which honestly are better than people think. I bet that double wall was to reduce heat, one of these days I'm gonna catch the bottom of this car on fire and it's gonna burn like a candle wick.

I wonder if it even has an 02 bung or if I'd have to weld that on.

Ooh, these will work great for the first part of a new system:



from summit, stainless, 2.5", with bung, claims it fits the L98. $100

Just curious why you have your heart set on stainless? I think mild steel is fine in 90% of applications. Your car doesn't see road salt so that's not really an issue.

The stock cat and headers are stainless, maybe even the stock y pipes? The inner pipe looks stainless anyways. Isn't everything stainless now? I guess in 100 years I want the exhaust pipes to be in good shape while it's rotting in the backyard of my great grandson's post-apocalyptic freedom farm.

The stainless was only $20 or $30 more for the front Y. I'll just get that premade Y and a new cat and stick these nice looking clamps on it and cut the rear wye where I can get a nice 3" butt connection.

I noticed the front exhaust hanger is made for oval. I wonder what the 86+ cars used. It hangs off of the transmission. I don't want it hanging down an extra 1/2" because it's round.

Also my rear Y is 86+, but I have nothing to hang it from. It's currently welded to the cat, but if I only have a clamp there then I need a hanger there. Would be nice to use the correct oem stuff instead of rigging something. Sounds like it's time to call the corvette junkyard.



These have a nice inner sleeve, and for the price they better work. I've tried the Walker ones without inner sleeves and they leak, I don't see how they ever won't leak.

This is part of the 86+ hanger. What goes under it?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1986-1987-198 ... 79?_trksid=p2054897.l4276


Eh, looks very similar.

[url]http://www.parts123.com/parts123/yb.dll?Parta~ShowPic~Z5Z5Z50000050f~Z5Z5Z5PG45~Z5Z5Z52[/url]

I havent had a stock system in a while so this is from memory. Sorry if I forget something or it is not correct.

The stock manifolds are cast iron. The remainder of the stock l98 system is mild steel. The lt1 was stainless. I don't remember what the cat was.

The 86+ cat was an oval style with a round front inlet slip fit, 2.5 or 3...sorry I don't remember off the top of my head. The rear of the cat was a ball flange with 2 bolts connecting to the rear y pipe.

The system had 4 hangers. The one for the cat was a round clamp that was bolted to the tailshaft housing of the trans. The rear y pipe was held up by a rubber strap on the rear passenger side that mounted somewhere near where the storage bins would be under the car. The mufflers each had L shaped hangers that slipped into a slot under the rear bumper.

Corsa 14115...google the instructions for that, it has a couple of pictures of the rear mount and cat flange.

Thanks. I looked up the p/n's in my parts manual and I think I found it all on ebay short of the rubber strap part which is easy to make.

The 85 stock headers I'm pretty sure are stainless. You can't always tell just by looking at it. There are many grades of stainless and some of them look the same as other steel after surface corrosion. Probably a cheap 409 alloy. It is definitely not cast anything though until the LT1.

Thanks for the clarification on manifolds. I am no expert and don't pretend to be.

So I decided on the Flowmaster front setup, mandrel bent, but in a few pieces so maybe easier to get a perfect fit, clamp it in place, then weld it at the nearest shop. Comes with a cat I can cut the rear flange off to clamp to my existing setup. Or toss it and put a carsound cat in there.


The kicker??? THEY WON'T SHIP IT TO CALIFORNIA. Summit direct ships from manufacturer too, so they won't either. What a joke. Nevermind that the carsound universal cat has a CARB EO number, and that my car has no factory precats.

I wonder if midamerica will even ship theirs, since it's not CARB legal on an 86-91 with precats. It's the same damn part as the 85 part but with a round end not a 4 bolt flange welded to it.

Oh fuck this I'm going to sleep. I'll trade it in for a Prius in the morning and join a commune.

Looks like a good choice aside from the shipping hassle. Any chance you can have it shipped near the border and pick it up? Not sure how far away you are.

6 hour round trip to arizona, maybe I can get it shipped to Tijuana.

Jegs website didn't stop me from ordering it but I'm sure they will catch it. Apparently there is a new law against shipping non-carb cats to california, tried several places and they are all dropshipped from flowmaster. I think I need to find a drug smuggler.

I'll call flowmaster directly if I need to and tell them i just want the pipes, not the fucking cat, but they don't sell them separately. Man I just drove back from seattle last weekend too, had I torn into this prior to that trip I'd be golden.

After getting rejected by a few places, I called flowmaster directly.

They won't do a custom order of just the pipes or otherwise ship the package with the cat removed.

They ship out of sacramento, lol!

I'm gonna try my luck with some shady ebay vendors that claim to have it in stock.

If that doesn't work I'll decide between fabbing my own or buying the other front y from mid america.

You can also get the Y from allens. I believe they are the supplier for MidA.
http://www.allencorvetteexhaustsystems.com/