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Homemade Exhaust (updated pics)

Nobody

Bronco Guru
Joined
Feb 15, 2005
Messages
1,215
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Stanwood
Thought I'd share some pictures of my homemade exhaust. Not quite done yet, but I'm pleased so far. I'm running stock manifolds. I purchased some Mandrel U-Bends from summit. 2" off off the manifolds and dump into a single 2.25". I have a dynomax muffler that's not installed yet. I also still need to make the tailpipe.

Overall, it's not that difficult. Just a little time consuming. It was also my first real project using a mig. So don't be too critical of the welds!

eb-y-pipe.jpg


eb-exhaust.jpg


eb-y-pipe-clearance.jpg


eb-exhaust-crossmember.jpg


eb-hego-left.jpg


eb-hego-right.jpg


eb-exhaust-frame.jpg


edit: adding updated pictures

eb-exhaust-hanger.jpg


eb-exhaust-dynomax.jpg


eb-exhaust-tailpipe.jpg


eb-exhaust-tailpipe2.jpg
 
Last edited:

74BroncoCO

Bronco Guru
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
2,374
Cool! I think it looks great compared to the scabbed together system I have. Do you want to drop by and do mine after I get the Atlas installed?

J.D.
 

bronko69er

EB Addict
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Oct 16, 2006
Messages
4,599
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Renton, WA
Looks great! almost exactly what I did in mine (built thread). Recently added the magnaflow to mine, sounds great!
 

BUCKETOBOLTS

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Oct 28, 2003
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Salisbury, NC
Looks good! I got fed up with messing around with so called exhaust shops. They either didn't want to mess with it at all or wanted to do it their way. So I bought a bunch of pipe and went to work myself. I plan on doing the same with my F250 when I get to that point.
 
OP
OP
Nobody

Nobody

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Looks good! You said it took some time--approx. how long?

I don't really know. I've worked on it for several weekends. However I've been splitting what little time I have among several bronco projects.

It did take me a little while figure out the best way to work with the bends. Then I had figure out the best way to route the exaust and place O2 sensors. Of course the whole process involved about a thousand test fits. Of course my wife always came out to bug me everytime I crawled under the bronco!

Making the Y was the hardest part. Took some grinding and file work to make sure there was a nice smooth merge. Here is an online calculator for printing the coping pattern http://www.metalgeek.com/cgi-system/php5.cgi/static/cope.pcgi


Now that I have everything figured out, I could probably make the same thing in a couple hours.
 
OP
OP
Nobody

Nobody

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Messages
1,215
Loc.
Stanwood
Looks good! I got fed up with messing around with so called exhaust shops. They either didn't want to mess with it at all or wanted to do it their way. So I bought a bunch of pipe and went to work myself. I plan on doing the same with my F250 when I get to that point.

I agree that there are very few high quality exhaust shops. And if you get lucky enough to find a good one, you will pay dearly for custom work. As far as I'm concerned do-it-yourself is the only way to go. I used my savings to buy a chop saw!
 

Fishbone

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Nov 5, 2007
Messages
534
Loc.
Northern, Illinois
Overall, it's not that difficult. Just a little time consuming. It was also my first real project using a mig. So don't be too critical of the welds!


No critisism here, it looks great!;D

Maybe you did this already, but an old c-clamp with some short pieces of angle welded to each of the clamping points works good for holding things in place while you tack it together.
 
OP
OP
Nobody

Nobody

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looks great .. i've paid alot of $, for alot worse of a job.... how many U bends did u use?


I purchased four 2" u-bends. Used three, but only needed two. I also purchased four 2.25" u-bends for the tailpipe. I expect to only need two of those as well.

I tried to guestimate bends based on the factory exhaust. Everything lined up much better than I expected. Where it bends around the bellhousing, it ended up being a straight shot all the way back while staying above the bottom of the frame and clearing the crossmember. I actually started over when I saw that I could make that work. Then with the offset inlet/outlet on the muffler, it's going to eliminate the need for bends up and over the axle. My plan at this point is to do a side dump behind the rear tire. Don't want my kids inhailing exhaust. If it gets too much tail damage I might try something else.
 

Dan74Bronc

Sr. Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2007
Messages
928
Loc.
Chandler, Az
Great job.

You've inspired me to finally do something about my exhaust. It's too loud, or maybe I just don't like the sound, too old school cherry bombish for me. Maybe I'm just getting old. I'm thinking something more low rumble sleeper type for my ride.
Thanks for the pics, and again, great job.
Dan
 

mr.n

Sr. Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2004
Messages
710
I purchased some Mandrel U-Bends from summit. 2" off off the manifolds and dump into a single 2.25".
Can you expand on the 2" off off the manifolds

Did you buy the pieces that bolt to the manifold from Summit? Have a part #?
 
OP
OP
Nobody

Nobody

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Can you expand on the 2" off off the manifolds

Did you buy the pieces that bolt to the manifold from Summit? Have a part #?

Short answer: No, an exhaust shop crimped in the donut flange.


Long answer: Sure I'll expand...but it's a bit of a sore subject. I did a little research and couldn't find any aftermarket "starter" pieces. I did however see these, which looked promising and is basically what I planned on making.

http://www.travelallparts.com/products/photos/ExhauseDonuts_225670.jpg

The plan was to cut the flare off an existing exhaust pipe, then bore it out for a slip fit over a 2" OD pipe.

Then in the interest of saving time, I stopped by an exhaust shop so see if their machine could do a factory style donut flange. The guy said yeah yeah, no problem. Appearantly I wasn't completely clear on what I wanted as he produced a couple pieces that flared the tube, then pressed in a smaller tube to create the donut flange. This of course restricts the ID to that of the pressed in pipe. I wasn't real thrilled about it, but forked over $30 for something I didn't want. Ultimately, I don't think it was really that big of deal it was still large enough to flow all that my motor would need.

By the time I drove the couple miles home, I was back to plan A. Make my own. Having that little restriction right at the manifold would have ate at me, knowing it wasn't right. It was a bit time consuming, but I produced one of my own. I think it would have worked fine, but I was out of time for that weekend so I didn't proceed.

You can see several pics of the ones I had made by a shop, and the process of making my own here.

http://www.broncoii4x4.com/donut-flange/donut-flange.php

Then I ran across a photo on Pirate4x4 of guy that made his own exhaust, which had factory a factory style donut flange crimped in the tube. He told me in a PM that he just had his local exhaust shop do it.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showpost.php?p=3909526&postcount=44

Now that I knew it could be done, I was back to plan B...find a shop with a machine that could do it right!

Since I travel the whole region for work, armed with the picture of what I wanted, I stopped by several exhaust shops. My travels brought me to Stans Headers in Auburn, Wa. For the first time, the guy instantly knew what I was talking about. He said he hadn't had a request for that in a long time. Unfortunately it was going to set me back $18 ea. Highway robbery in my book, but understandable being that they are a header shop and their time is valuable. So like 2 minutes later it was done. I even got to watch. It's just a stupid piece they throw on a standard exhaust machine and voila. I'm quite certain now that some of the other shops could do it, they just didn't know it.

I did get a tour of the header shop, so it wasn't a total rip off. They had several Mandrel benders, so that was kinda cool to see.

So my advice is to check out some of your local exhaust shops. Chances are one of them can do it, and probably for a lot less than I paid. I wouldn't bother with the midas type shops though.

To clarify, I used 2.00" OD pipe off the manifolds, which merge into a single 2.25 OD pipe.
 
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OP
Nobody

Nobody

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Got a chance to finish up the tailpipe this weekend. Still need to make one more hanger for the tailpipe. Clearances are pretty tight where it goes over the shock mount, so hopefully it won't rattle! I can't wait to hear how it sounds.

eb-exhaust-hanger.jpg


eb-exhaust-dynomax.jpg


eb-exhaust-tailpipe.jpg


eb-exhaust-tailpipe2.jpg
 
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