I totally agree with taz here... none of us are trying to harp on ya but know one thing, mufflers do attract attention. they attract attention form the guy in the other car, the guy across the street, the girl getting her hair cut, and the cop 4 blocks down. and.. well... if he needs to pull one of you over, guess who he will chose.

 

Straight pipes right off the manifold as was suggested is not the same as straight pipe with a cat and glasspack/resonator- I bet its a good deal quieter with those on.

I also don't generalize all V8s as sounding great with straight pipes- sure those drag rail cars with the big blowers sound good with straight pipes, as would maybea cammed/ fully built sub 10 second V8. But IMO, nearly stock engines, even partially built engines mostly sound like poo with straight dumps.

Maybe I'm just sick of all the nasty beat up pickup trucks, and rusted out 70s/80s beaters running around with V8s with "straight pipes" (or rusted out exhaust, whichever you want to call it); and I have a feeling thats what this car would sound like (I'm in no way implying your car is rusted out or beat up, but it shares the powertrain as many of the cars that are like that). Thats cool you're swapping a 383 in later, I know how long it takes to build an engine from scratch, especially if you don't have connections to do the machine shop work yourself. Even with the 383, unless it was crazy heavily built or boosted, I'd still probably stick some mufflers on it.

Just my .02