Whomever restored my car (68 Firebird 400 clone) chose to shoot the exhaust pipes out the back Camaro style. I was wanting to correct that and make it look like the car did as it rolled off of the assembly line.

I have googled and googled trying to sort out what it should look like. Unfortunately as there are so many people who have restored their cars, there are countless styles that I am seeing.

I do believe that they should go down around the back wheel and stop there. But I have seen many variants to that style as well. Some are single tipped. Some have dual tips. Some are tucked under the car. Some are slightly visible. Some that are visible have chrome tips. Some are just stainless steal. Should the cut follow the lines of the car? Is it at a particular angle? Sorry for my confusion.

I watched the commercials and looked at the sales literature for the car and neither show a good shot of it.

If you can post pictures, that would be great! I'd like to get this done before the weekend if possible.

Thank you in advance!

- Gene

These are all the rear pics I can find in the old 67 magazines I have.

I have the stock splitters on both my cars. Check out my photobucket for various angles of view. (you may need to sift through various picts)

The bottom pitch of the splitters matches the pitch of the bottom of the quarters.

Thanks for the old magazine scans. Even in those, in some cases you can see the tips and in others you can not. I wonder if it varied by trim level?

68tpls400 - I went through your pictures and that's kind of what I am hoping they should look like! Based on the magazine scans, a couple of the pictures have that look, so I am thinking that is the right look.

I just know that the guy who restored my car spent allot of time trying to make it look like a factory 400 would have looked. Of course he went with seats from a 69, a aftermarket Grant's steering wheel, Camaro style ehaust, and a Ford color which baffles me. So I just want to slowly bring things back to the way they should be.

Thanks again!

- Gene

Here's a few pics of mine, they don't have the pinch but work nonetheless and are cheaper...I got mine from Pypes for 60 some dollars. I see they are now around $80 but still a good deal.

Exhaust tip "peakage" is adjustable. Mine were not quite even poking out from behind the 1/4's after I got back from the muffler shop. About 10 seconds of taking hold of the tips and bending a bit got me what I wanted.

Dave's are a bit more visable than mine.

Perhaps because of the fact that the guy who restored her changed the exhaust setup (per the exhaust shop's comments) they mentioned that I would have to have custom work done from the mufflers back. He stated that he knew how they should look. (He's a reputable guy that most folks go to around here for exhaust work) I just wanted to be able to show him a picture to make sure.

Mine are up a bit since those pics were taken, I have about 3/4 " showing now as well...

I`m not sure how correct mine are...but to me they look good....
bought on EBay, just splitter tips

Jim,

Those look way further back than I have ever seen. Maybe the angle of the picture??

Gardner makes concours correct systems that fit.

A local muffler shop made the setup on my '69 using the original factory system as a pattern. One thing the local shop won't be able to do is to expand and ovalize the tailpipe tip as much as the factory tailpipes. They were stretched, flattened, and clamped so as to clear the leaf springs, and were cut at an angle to approximately follow the bottom line of the car. They drop just a little behind the wheel well. The system was also equipped with two resonators under the belly and one dual transverse crossflow muffler in front of the gas tank.

This is true for dual exhaust systems; I do not know how the single exhaust were done.

Back in the eighties I used to get a FB newsletter from the states. One month they had a writeup on factory exhaust splitters. AMES sells the very one. It's part no. FL301 on pg 104.

If you use the other common style sometimes you have a hard time stopping them from rattling on the quarters. There is a notch on these so that it does not rattle.

Vikki is correct. Here is my factory duplicated system, with the correct Ames reproduction splitters:

I have a set of the Pypes splitters that I am selling.
If anyone is interested let me know.

pm sent

Catalina, VERY NICE! Nothing looks as nice as a tight, clean stock appearing exhaust system. Some of the cars I have looked with my friend Mike when he is doing an appraisel, seems when it comes to exhaust people will pretty much accept anything under their as long as it sounds good.

and mine, on a convertible the pipes tuck under the X brace...the rest of the system is the same.

My undercarriage has been detailed since then.

Top: new; bottom: factory original but rusted resonators replaced with pipe.

And getting all those tubes through that x-brace without any rattles took a whole lot of re-adjusting on mine. I think I had stuff apart about 6-8 times. No rattles since, so it did all fit.

Vikki, mine run through the X-brace as well.

The one thing about running the piped through the tunnel like the original is it does throw extra heat into the passenger compartment. My kids have mentioned a couple of times that the seat belt bolts for the front seats can get pretty hot. Not enough to burn you, but definitely hot enough you will not leave your hand on one.

Never had any rattles with the exhaust but I did have to loosen a couple of clamps and put a block of wood on one of the mufflers and lift with a jack. That was just to tweak it enough to get both sides to look the same in its normal stance.