A while back I posted that my fourth of July project was to install the Stainless exhaust system I purchased from Don Simmons on my 83 Avanti. I received a flurry of emails (well two) asking if I would post pictures and my observations. So ask and yea shall receive.
First off: Don is a great guy to deal with and takes the time to understand what you want so it's correct the first time. Of course I know a lot more about his grandkids and his likes in cars than I did before I called as well as he knows mine.
I can see that don only has one problem. He'll sell to anyone including a maroon like me. More later.
We closed the deal with the understanding that I would receive his 2 1/4" system set up to fit my yet to be installed 2 1/2" vette manifolds. The pipes would be extended 5" to allow the use of my smaller 17" glasspack mufflers, and standard length behind the rear wheels as I'm adding my 3" Maremount chromed stainless tips. Don says those mufflers may not pass muster in Canada, possibly a little loud.
Along with the system came the flanges, gasket with stainless pipe centers, hangers and stainless clamps. Take it from me, if you buy the system from Don buy all the flanges etc. also. Very heavy duty.
Hang up the phone and 5 business days later the UPS guy drags a heavy package up to the door. It's the system from Silvertone. I drag it out to the pole barn and unwrap it. It is an impressive system and so heavy duty that UPS could not bend it even though the package looked like they tried.
Here it is laid out with the manifolds.
Laid the system out on the floor and put it together. Every joint slid with minimal resistance, first time that's happened in a while.
This is the complete drivers side.
Now the maroon strikes, put the avanti up on supports and puts the system together after putting on the vette manifolds. I look at my manuals but no shots of the system. Well, how tough can it be I just cut the old one out. Don had indicated the pipes that fit the head pipe by side and the next pipes are exact copies from side to side.
Got the pipes and mufflers on and no way in will the tailpipes fit. Try them side to side, tried rearranging the other pipes and no luck. Almost got to the point of getting out the trusty Mig and modifying the darn thing. Sanity prevails and I quit for the day.
Next day go back to the carnage and get no further so I decide to call Don. Previous members had said the system are like OEM so I'm sure I'm missing something. We go over pipe order and Don's says it must be I need to rotate the pipes more because he preassembled the system and it was correct. Back out again and same issues so I assume by what I see he possibly did not add the 5" to the pipes. Back on the phone with that question so Don says measure the third pipe. Give him the measurement and he says Yep!! it 5" longer than standard, to which I reply There's no way I can fit the muffler on that short of pipe it won't come through the rear of the X-member.
I detect either a chuckle or a gulp that would indicate that he may be asking himself why he sold a system to a maroon. His question was where did you put the mufflers? My answer, behind the X-member where I cut them out of. Gosh Bob, the Avanti mufflers go into the X-member not behind it.
A detect a smile again. And by the way when you hang them you will need to fabricte a set of hangers for the mufflers as they don't exist on the later II's.
Dang, he was pleasant the whole time and most helpful.
Back under the Avanti, whole darn system went together in 20 minutes like it was made for it.
A couple of thoughts on the install: After I assembled the system with no clamps and a light shot of WD-40 on the joints, I could see the places that it was tight. I cut a lot of 3/8 and 1/2" shims and set the system where I thought it looked correct.
I then added the clamps just snug and at that point could see the tightest area was the passage through the rear of the x-member. I decided to add hangers at the rear of the muffler to stiffen up the area.
Here a couple of shots of the hanger and install.
I was lucky enough to have a variety of hangers I could modify to work that were a present from a friend that had emptied his polebarn a few years back.
Installed
The rest was just tightening the clamps and checking the system.
Here are the final three shots for today.
Tailpipe clearance
X-frame clearance
Install
And for you that can't get enough pictures, to paraphrase Jerry Forrester, peek-turs, dang right we got peek-turs. Heres the link to the 71 pictures I took. They are NOT sorted.
Just a couple of thoughts on install time. I have about 10 hours into the install including removing to old system and manifolds and reinstalling the new manifolds and system. I'll bet now with the manifolds installed I could do it in two hours and Don said less than 1 1/2 hours for him.
Let me know if I can answer any questions.
Bob
First off: Don is a great guy to deal with and takes the time to understand what you want so it's correct the first time. Of course I know a lot more about his grandkids and his likes in cars than I did before I called as well as he knows mine.
I can see that don only has one problem. He'll sell to anyone including a maroon like me. More later.
We closed the deal with the understanding that I would receive his 2 1/4" system set up to fit my yet to be installed 2 1/2" vette manifolds. The pipes would be extended 5" to allow the use of my smaller 17" glasspack mufflers, and standard length behind the rear wheels as I'm adding my 3" Maremount chromed stainless tips. Don says those mufflers may not pass muster in Canada, possibly a little loud.
Along with the system came the flanges, gasket with stainless pipe centers, hangers and stainless clamps. Take it from me, if you buy the system from Don buy all the flanges etc. also. Very heavy duty.
Hang up the phone and 5 business days later the UPS guy drags a heavy package up to the door. It's the system from Silvertone. I drag it out to the pole barn and unwrap it. It is an impressive system and so heavy duty that UPS could not bend it even though the package looked like they tried.
Here it is laid out with the manifolds.
Laid the system out on the floor and put it together. Every joint slid with minimal resistance, first time that's happened in a while.
This is the complete drivers side.
Now the maroon strikes, put the avanti up on supports and puts the system together after putting on the vette manifolds. I look at my manuals but no shots of the system. Well, how tough can it be I just cut the old one out. Don had indicated the pipes that fit the head pipe by side and the next pipes are exact copies from side to side.
Got the pipes and mufflers on and no way in will the tailpipes fit. Try them side to side, tried rearranging the other pipes and no luck. Almost got to the point of getting out the trusty Mig and modifying the darn thing. Sanity prevails and I quit for the day.
Next day go back to the carnage and get no further so I decide to call Don. Previous members had said the system are like OEM so I'm sure I'm missing something. We go over pipe order and Don's says it must be I need to rotate the pipes more because he preassembled the system and it was correct. Back out again and same issues so I assume by what I see he possibly did not add the 5" to the pipes. Back on the phone with that question so Don says measure the third pipe. Give him the measurement and he says Yep!! it 5" longer than standard, to which I reply There's no way I can fit the muffler on that short of pipe it won't come through the rear of the X-member.
I detect either a chuckle or a gulp that would indicate that he may be asking himself why he sold a system to a maroon. His question was where did you put the mufflers? My answer, behind the X-member where I cut them out of. Gosh Bob, the Avanti mufflers go into the X-member not behind it.
A detect a smile again. And by the way when you hang them you will need to fabricte a set of hangers for the mufflers as they don't exist on the later II's.
Dang, he was pleasant the whole time and most helpful.
Back under the Avanti, whole darn system went together in 20 minutes like it was made for it.
A couple of thoughts on the install: After I assembled the system with no clamps and a light shot of WD-40 on the joints, I could see the places that it was tight. I cut a lot of 3/8 and 1/2" shims and set the system where I thought it looked correct.
I then added the clamps just snug and at that point could see the tightest area was the passage through the rear of the x-member. I decided to add hangers at the rear of the muffler to stiffen up the area.
Here a couple of shots of the hanger and install.
I was lucky enough to have a variety of hangers I could modify to work that were a present from a friend that had emptied his polebarn a few years back.
Installed
The rest was just tightening the clamps and checking the system.
Here are the final three shots for today.
Tailpipe clearance
X-frame clearance
Install
And for you that can't get enough pictures, to paraphrase Jerry Forrester, peek-turs, dang right we got peek-turs. Heres the link to the 71 pictures I took. They are NOT sorted.
Just a couple of thoughts on install time. I have about 10 hours into the install including removing to old system and manifolds and reinstalling the new manifolds and system. I'll bet now with the manifolds installed I could do it in two hours and Don said less than 1 1/2 hours for him.
Let me know if I can answer any questions.
Bob
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