New Exhaust

I’ve been looking forward to replacing the exhaust on the wagon for a while. It hasn’t risen to the top of the list of importance so I’ve just been doing planning and researching.

As usual, my wagon decides what it wants and when it gets it. A hanger on the drivers side tailpipe broke some time ago and the previous owner must have caught that hang-down tailpipe on something and loosened the intake pipe on the drivers-side muffler. I’ve been tuning it out but it’s been getting steadily louder for some time. Last week it started to get raspy enough that it was pretty obvious that the volume level wasn’t by design and was actually a hole somewhere. I adjusted my priorities and went ahead with the exhaust replacement. I found a guy in town who does brakes and exhaust and was the only guy with a listing for custom exhaust. I told him what I wanted and he agreed to tackle the wagon the next morning. I had planned on 2-1/4″ pipe and a pair of Flowmaster 40’s. Pete recommended Magnaflow’s based on my description of how I wanted it to sound so I went with his judgement. I desperately wanted the long rectangular exhaust tips that he had on hand. Unfortunately they were best suited for rear exit as they just didn’t look right at the sides of the car. Fortunately I read the recent exhaust thread over at StationWagonForums.com and opted to keep the exhaust exiting at the side to stop CO from building up in my back window. I went with a set of oval chrome tips instead.
The set that they had on hand were double ported but I had it cut in half and used one port on each side. The twin pipes on each side wouldn’t have looked right in my opinion. I quite like the way it looks now. I managed to stroll in and get a few pictures of the installation while no one was actively working on the car.