Am I being charged too much for exhaust work?

racecougar

Registered User
Just a quick question for everyone who has had exhaust work done. I'm about to have some work done, but the price I was quoted seemed rather high. This is all going on a 94 LX with a N/A 3.8 (splitport).

2.25" downtubes
2 - 2.25" Catco Catalytic Convertors
Magnaflow resonator (PN #12278)
Single 3" pipe until rear end, then split into dual 2.25" pipes with turn downs at the bumper.

I've already bought the cats and the resonator, so all I'm paying them to do is install those parts along with all new pipe. How much would you guys/gals think this should cost? Just want to make sure that I'm not getting screwed over.

Thanks,
Rod
 
a pretty normal rate for just the install of pipe and mufflers should be around 100-130. Now add in the price of the pipe and see what you get.
 
Yeah, about how much would all of the pipe cost (aluminized, compression bent)? Remember, I'm not even having mufflers installed, its just 2 cats and a resonator.

Thanks,
Rod
 
Well I had the exhaust work done yesterday. I ended up going to a different shop than the one that quoted $350. The shop that did the work charged $325, and they did excellent work. Here's what they installed:

2.25" downtubes
2- 2.25" Catco High Flow Cats (paid for seperately)
2.25" pipe into a Magnaflow resonator (paid for seperately)
3" to just before the rear end, where it splits into dual 2.75" with turndowns at the bumper.

It was done exactly how I wanted. However it has an incredible amount of drone, which I thought the Magnaflow resonator would take care of. Anyone else here have a similar setup? Does it drone terribly? It sounds great when I'm on the gas, but when cruising along it's pretty annoying.

-Rod
 
drone

i originally used 2.25 downtubes with high flow cats from Super Coupe Performance, into a "V force" muffler in place of the stock resonator (it's a flowmaster copy ) then 3" pipe, split back into (2) 2 1/4" tailpipes. My buddy has an exhaust pipe bender at his transmission shop and we did it there. looked nice but sounded TERRIBLE!..... So i got some Dynomax SuperTurbos and put them in back where the original mufflers were, we had to rebend the tailpipes a bit.........but it sounded LOTS better.....until i got on the Interstate at 70 in overdrive.....that's where the drone was bad, right at the speed i drive, 70 to 75 (dont tell me speed up , i thought of that, but cant get another ticket!). Anyway i ended up replaceing the "V-Force" resonator with an "XLERATOR" muffler, dual 2 1/4 inlets and single 3" outlet, it's fully welded and aluminized like a flowmaster but it has some packing in it to mellow the sound. Now the drone is much less annoying, but it's a little louder on Hard acceleration. Overall i like it now, but the trial and error got expensive!
 
many places will work in a surcharge for bringing in your own parts, because not getting them from the shop means the shop loses their markup...that may be some of this expense
 
Two problems, the pipe size being 2.25 instead of 2.5 and if it was not mandrel bent then it is not really worth it. From what I have read it seems that all those getting drone have used compression bent pipe. I had the SCP set up with catco high flow cats, magnaflow res, and no mufflers and it had no drone and sounded really good.
 
I got a quote on the same system on my car, but I was going to buy the cats and the res from them. They wanted 625.


Who has a mandrel bender? I have checked all over Houston and haven't found a shop that has one.

Jeff
 
There are actualy very very few shops on the east coast and mid states, most seem to be on the west coast and way down south. What a bummer.
 
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