I am thinking of getting some cutouts, but I have never had any before. Is there a power gain?
what are the pros and cons? If I do get a cutout where should I place it in the exhaust system?



Thanks,
Steven

 

Ok, im the king with cutouts lol.

Nah, really though, they are huge in the Grand National marketplace (which is essentially what I am around).

On turbo cars, you see fairly large improvements with a cutout. Reason being, plain and simple they eliminate back pressure and allow exhaust gasses a way to bypass restrictive mufflers and cats.

On NA cars, the gains are not as notcieable, as you would like to retain a slight bit of back pressure for low end torque.

There are two primary types of cutouts, electric and mechanical. In my opinion, the mechanical units are best, as they have a gasket in between the two mating surfaces and dont really leak. Electric cutouts on the other hand have no way of permanently sealing, so unless you like the sound of exhaust tick, i would highly recomend you stay away from them.

As far as installation, ideal placement would be before any cats, resonators, mufflers or tight radius bends. Some people seem to place one cutout before each muffler which is a waste imo. I would suggest having a 3" downpipe modified with a cutout before the cat so it acts as a turndown and would be fairly simple to get at.

On my street car, i have the cutout right before the y, but that is only because i dont run a cat. hope that answers a few of your questions.

 

Back when I was a kid, we ran cut-out pipes to triangular flange covers right below the front door hinges. You could keep the chrome plated flange covers on the cut-outs for quite running ... or, remove the covers for racing. A lot of guys would leave the Flange Cover on with one bolt and just open them half-way of less for some noise when doing weekend cruising and just showing-off.

I think they used to call them "Lake Pipes" ... these days I think they are called "Dump Tubes".

 

will it mess with the o2 sensors?

 

yes, unless you place one after the sensors (such as i had at the y....)

heres a crappy cell phone pic to give you an idea.



...you can get an idea where Brian is mocking it up for tack welds.

 

yeah I was think I would have to run it after the o2

 

When I do my custom catback in the spring I'm going to do the samething, but not for performance, I'm just doing it for sound. I'm going with Borla mufflers and there not going to be as loud as my Flowmasters. I either want to put it right before the Y-pipe or right where our res. are now. Might do it where the res. is now if I don't go with a high flow res.

Heybfurches just wondering how does your car sound with the cutout open?

 

LOUD

...i will try and get a video up

 

That's what I'm looking for is loud when I want and nice deep tone most of the time. Also can you get a pic of it welding in there too?