Build your own truck muffler

[Beetle-Kill]

I didn't want to, but I did it today. And it sounds better than the stock exhaust, but not raspy. Free rev. is a bit quicker, and no backfire. Guess I got lucky in the design. Has anyone else built their own exhaust system from scratch? I'm venting a 454.

 

[nate379]

Sure. Looked under the truck, scratched my head, then my nose, then my nuts and maybe ass, and went to the store and bought pipe and a muffler. That's built from a scratch right?

 

[Beetle-Kill]

Sure. Looked under the truck, scratched my head, then my nose, then my nuts and maybe ass, and went to the store and bought pipe and a muffler. That's built from a scratch right?

DEET might help prevent that scratchin thing, as would clothes. :coolsmirk: My choices were drive down to Denver for a set of mufflers, or build my own. I bought 10' of tube, and a few elbows. The rest I made. There aren't any muffler shops around here, so I was on my own. My muffler cost $10 in material, plus my labor. I fired it up for the Boss today, 'cause he asked how it turned out. He told me it was good to know we can build that stuff. Yup, I'm boasting a little, but it sounds better than our foremans $800 cat-back exhaust does.
So anyhow, has anyone built their own exhaust for anything?

 

[begreen]

C'mon BK, post some pictures of your new muffler. Did you work out any internal baffling or is it essentially a straight pipe?

 

[ewdudley]

Sure. Looked under the truck, scratched my head, then my nose, then my nuts and maybe ass, and went to the store and bought pipe and a muffler. That's built from a scratch right?

DEET might help prevent that scratchin thing, as would clothes. :coolsmirk: My choices were drive down to Denver for a set of mufflers, or build my own. I bought 10' of tube, and a few elbows. The rest I made. There aren't any muffler shops around here, so I was on my own. My muffler cost $10 in material, plus my labor. I fired it up for the Boss today, 'cause he asked how it turned out. He told me it was good to know we can build that stuff. Yup, I'm boasting a little, but it sounds better than our foremans $800 cat-back exhaust does.
So anyhow, has anyone built their own exhaust for anything?

Used to build them when I drove Audi 4000s for many years. They went to stainless steel in the later models, but the 4000 exhaust systems were unbelievably expensive and didn't last very long on salty winter roads.

Fortunately the dumpster behind the local muffler shop had a certain percentage of what appeared to be new parts from botched jobs that I could pick through for material, so there was enough curved stuff to work with to make it pretty easy. Didn't have to build the muffler itself, there were plenty of those to choose from. But did used to make perforated-tube-in-tube glass pack mufflers for the sound once in a while.

I just cut and fit pieces up under the car and tacked them together in place with a MIG and then pulled assemblies out onto the bench to weld everything tight and solid. Hang everything in place and away you go.

--ewd

 

[Danno77]

Build a muffler, or just some exhaust pipe? I dunno many people capable of building a muffler.

 

[Beetle-Kill]

C'mon BK, post some pictures of your new muffler. Did you work out any internal baffling or is it essentially a straight pipe?

When have you ever seen me post pictures? I don't know how, and haven't bothered to learn how to yet.
The muffler is 20" long, 11.75" wide, and 4" tall. Rectangle laid flat. The 2 1/2" tubes enter on the ends, go through a series of perforated sheet baffles, and dump out in the center. The muffler body is 14g. sheet steel. Doubt it last much more than 2 years, but who knows? It was fun to build. I'll eventually run some headers on the truck, so I'll end up doing it all over again.