Haven't pulled the trigger on the SS exhaust....yet

[hrhchazman]

So it's getting pretty cold up here in New England and I've come to the realization that now that I have "Sta-bil" ized the gas and filled the tank, our car is in the garage until Spring. I'm thinking about the SS exhaust system project again and I have noticed that there are two dealers in Avanti magazine who both sell 409 grade stainless systems. My question is this - Does anybody know if there is a good reason to buy the "more costly" one which doesn't include mufflers over the "less expensive" system that does includes mufflers. Both say they are 8 pipe systems (Our car is a 1967) and are made of the 409 SS.

Charlie

[Gunslinger]

There could be several reasons...which of them might be applicable I don't know without more information than the ads give.

It could be one is made of thicker gauge steel than the other. One could be the difference between 2" pipes and 2 1/4" or even 2 1/2" diameter pipes. The costs of raw materials could be higher for one vendor. If it's the ads I saw, one vendor is in Canada and the price could reflect the difference in exchange rates. One vendor says their mufflers are stainless steel while the other says theirs are aluminized steel...big difference in cost right there.

You need to contact each and get all the specs so you can compare apples to apples.

Personally, I don't see the need to spend the extra on stainless steel for the exhaust. Aluminized will last indefinitely anyway, is less expensive and is easier to work with. Since your car is garaged all Winter, it won't be seeing road salts that can rust an exhaust system. My daily driver has its factory aluminized exhaust and after nearly eleven years and 120k miles in all kinds of weather, it's still in excellent shape...it was inspected a few months ago at 115k miles. My '70 Avanti has a 2 1/2" aluminized exhaust fabricated by a speed shop and will likely still have it for many years with little to no wear.