‘68 GT500 Exhaust Tips for 2-1/2” Pipes

[8T03S1425]

I have an X-pipe, dual muffler, stainless steel, Magna Flo exhaust system on my GT500 convertible. Feeding the system are Hooker headers that I bought back in the mid-to-late '70s. They were in pretty good shape so I had them Jet Hot coated in silver. The exhaust system looks and sounds good, but I haven't found exhaust tips that look like the '68 Shelby pipe-in-pipe.

I saw that one of my SAAC Super Heroes, ShelbyDoug, has tips that I was looking for.



Talk to me/us ShelbyDoug. Based on that picture, and other mods you've written about doing, I'm betting that you're not using a 2" exhaust, but yet you found a source for exhaust tips that look kinda like the '68 Shelby pipe-in-pipe. I'd like to get something similar. What is your recommendation? Are they a Scott Fuller custom?

Steve

[Rukiddin]

 I got these from Branda a while back

[8T03S1425]

Thanks for the reply Rukidden. Are they for the 2" exhaust or 2-1/2" exhaust?

I already have the Branda reproduction pieces. I bought them decades ago, and they are for the 2" exhaust system. I'd hate to use a 2-1/2" to 2" reducer.

I was thinking of having them modified if I can't get ready made '68 Shelby non-KR exhaust tips for 2-1/4" pipes.

Steve

[shelbydoug]

I have an X-pipe, dual muffler, stainless steel, Magna Flo exhaust system on my GT500 convertible. Feeding the system are Hooker headers that I bought back in the mid-to-late '70s. They were in pretty good shape so I had them Jet Hot coated in silver. The exhaust system looks and sounds good, but I haven't found exhaust tips that look like the '68 Shelby pipe-in-pipe.

I saw that one of my SAAC Super Heroes, ShelbyDoug, has tips that I was looking for.



Talk to me/us ShelbyDoug. Based on that picture, and other mods you've written about doing, I'm betting that you're not using a 2" exhaust, but yet you found a source for exhaust tips that look kinda like the '68 Shelby pipe-in-pipe. I'd like to get something similar. What is your recommendation? Are they a Scott Fuller custom?

Steve

Your Super Hero? HA! Don't trip on my cape.

You literally are looking at the tip of the iceberg. It's JBA 6011 headers (1-3/4" Primaries), 2-1/2" exhaust running through 14" Flowmasters.

Since the tailpipes are also 2-1/2" what I did was cut the Shelby tips at the back where 2-1/2" lines up, took the guts out, slipped them over the tail pipes and welded the tips to the tail pipes. You are the first person who as ever noticed it.

It's part of my plan of concealing a monster in Shelby clothing. No one ever noticed the rear tires either.


2"? Tisk. You're kidding right?

2-1/4"? Restrictive no?

[Coralsnake]

Any good exhaust shop has an expander tool, shop be short wofk to open them up

Scott Fuller Might also have some custom pipes

[8T03S1425]

The modification you did was what I was considering. Since I can't use the Branda replicas, as is, I could either sell them and buy custom made tips or I could modify my existing tips as you did yours.

I spoke with Scott Fuller and he told me he might be able to custom make a pair, to the same quality level of his existing offerings. On the downside it would be a special project with the associated costs and lead time.

I'll check some exhaust shops that do custom work to see if one of them would be willing to cut the back of the Branda tips, somewhere along the belled surface where it transitions from the 2" inner pipe to the 3" outer pipe, remove the 2" inner pipe, and then have them weld a length of 2-1/4" SS pipe, expanded so it can slide over and clamp on to my 2-1/4" exhaust and be concentric with the 3" outer pipe. Once the new inner pipe is miter cut to match the outer pipe, presto-change-o, I should have the tips I want.

More to come on this.

[shelbydoug]

If you don't have stainless exhaust pipes, don't bother with it. It's harder to bend without crimpling it and you can't gas weld it to the chromed steel tips.

You really want to weld the Shelby tips on for practical purposes. If you don't need the originial configuration of clamps and adapter tubes, avoid them. They are uggly, restrictive and only the Concourse Judges appreciate the effort.

They are not necessarily very sturdy either until they rust together.



I just used a thick exhaust tubing with an assemblance of 90 degree elbows, tacked them together to get the shape right, took them down, then gas welded them together.

I used Eastwood exhaust paint on them and they are still fine after 10 years or so. I might just go with having them ceramic coated in the future IF NECESSARY.



The same with the headers in that since the emergence of ceramic coating, you no longer need stainless tubes as an anti-corrosion solution.

Welding the pipes to my configuration also permits the system to be disassembled in components easily.


2-1/2" tubing is what you want to use. I have 2" primary header tubes on my Pantera, ceramic coated, running to 3" core stainless mufflers but that's a little loud behind the car. Inside you don't hear the exhausts and it pisses off the "kids" with the Hondas and the 3" flame thrower exhaust systems.

They just curse me out in Spanish. I flash an INS sign at them and they go away quickly. I love to piss people off.

I call them "Conquistadores". Taking short cuts through my neighborhood, looking for "El Dorado" I suppose? Hey, my driveway is not a shortcut. Get lost.


If Coralsnake wants to climb under the car and take pictures as evidence of sacrilege he is welcomed to it. Be my guest. The Shelby Secret Police NEVER sleep!

[vtgt500]

Interesting.  I have the exact same exhaust on my '68 side oiler.  Ceramic coated SuperComps, 2-1/2" MagnaFlow with X-pipe into reproduction tips.  As Coral mentioned, had a tube fabricator expand tubing to make adapters.  I couldn't be happier.  Looks correct, is not obnoxiously loud, no hint of compromising performance, and best of all, will outlast me.

[8T03S1425]

Okay SAAC Forum readers, especially those reading or contributing to this thread, I need to get something off my chest. I'm a DUPA.

For some reason, could be my age, or maybe my advancing case of CRS, I thought my Magnaflow exhaust system was 2-1/4". It ain't. It's actually 2-1/2". I looked up my receipt and it shows that I ordered Magnaflow system #15816. It's described here:

https://www.magnaflow.com/products/15816-performance-exhaust-magnaflow-ford-mustang-street-series-crossmember-back-performance-exhaust-system

This correction certainly effects recommendations made here. Using a pipe expander, for instance. I'm not sure what the limits are, but I'm guessing that expanding a '68 Shelby non-KR exhaust chrome tip inlet from 2" to 2-1/4" has different considerations than expanding the same 2" tip to 2-1/2".

Here's another detail which should cause others to carefully consider exhaust modifications. My car is a convertible. Convertibles have a structural plate, under the car, that joins the left and right floor pans/seat structures. Because of that addition, exhaust intermediate pipes, as made to OEM specs, are bent differently for convertibles so they can be positioned above the structural plate and inside the driveshaft tunnel. Sport roof cars and coupes don't have that requirement. Since they don't have that structural plate, intermediate pipes can be straighter to hang a little lower in the drive shaft tunnel. If you're shopping for exhaust systems, you may notice a disclaimer that states, "Except convertibles."

And finally, I'm using Hooker Competition Plus equal length headers of the mid/late 1970s. Those headers hang kinda low and are long. Adding 2-1/2" exhaust pipes to the equation, exasperates a smooth transition from the header collectors to the intermediate pipes. The shop that installed the Magnaflow 15816 system had to make a transition piece between each header and the intermediate pipes. I'm not sure if 2-1/2" pipes can be custom bent so they run between the floor pan, the convertible structure plate, and the drive shaft. Don't forget the drive shaft has some up & down movement as the rear suspension travels up and down.

So here's the deal, modifying from a stock exhaust on a convertible is a balancing act. Certainly, making the exhaust system less restrictive yields performance improvements. Just as certain, using after market exhaust components, larger in diameter, on a convertible drops the exhaust system closer to speed bumps and some driveway transitions.

So this brings me back to my original dilemma, how can I add 1968 Shelby, pipe-in-a-pipe, exhaust tips to this exhaust system. ShelbyDoug provided some welding technical insight, should I elect to have my Branda repro tips modified. Pete Disher made a recommendation to consult with Scott Fuller. I spoke with Scott some time ago. Scott was interested, but he thought that there were design considerations that needed to be addressed for the pipe-in-a-pipe configuration. Replacing the 2" inner pipe with a 2-1/2" pipe diminishes the gap between the pipes to the extent that he thought the look was lost. To keep the gap, on the pipe-in-a-pipe design, he'd have to use a 3-1/2" outer pipe with a 2-1/2" inner pipe. That's where he advised me that this would be a special project subject to additional cost and lead time.

Another recommendation he made was to modify the '67 exhaust tip to use a 2-1/2" feeder pipe rather than a 2" feeder pipe. Bob Gains also mentioned this approach to me. This alternative is sounding better and better.

Considering all the problems in the world, what's a '68 GT500 convertible owner to do, in this situation?

Steve

[shelbydoug]

I have a pair of 67 tips here for 3074. They are (without getting off my butt to go measure) the same OD. They just don't have the inner pipe.

There is an adage in design. "form follows function". It took me all of 5 minutes to angst over not having enough clearance between the two pipes.

Within a short time, my hair grew back. I could eat Gen Tsu's chicken again. I could sleep through the night. No problems.


You now have the choice of being just cool, or crossing over to the dark side and being super cool. Now the risk with that is seemingly highly intelligent individuals will be completely overwhelmed and miss 95% of what you explain to them.

They will just smile and nod graciously simply because they are too embarrassed to admit that they don't understand a word you are saying.

This is the price of being Super Cool. It's very lonely. The other thing is, why worry? If you don't like my solution, go to plan B...whatever that is?


Being the stubborn non-conformist that I am, I'd consider making a replacement plate that is reformed to permit the exhaust pipes to sit up in the tunnel and nix the x pipe in favor of a simple cross over balance tube.

[8T03S1425]

Interesting.  I have the exact same exhaust on my '68 side oiler.  Ceramic coated SuperComps, 2-1/2" MagnaFlow with X-pipe into reproduction tips.  As Coral mentioned, had a tube fabricator expand tubing to make adapters.  I couldn't be happier.  Looks correct, is not obnoxiously loud, no hint of compromising performance, and best of all, will outlast me.

Hey there VTGT500, thanks for your reply.

So let me get this straight; you ran 2-1/2" pipes from the headers/exhaust manifolds back to the exhaust tips and then adapted the 2" pipe-in-a-pipe exhaust tip to your 2-1/2" exhaust system with a 2-1/2" to 2" reducer? It doesn't take away any performance advantage that the 2-1/2" exhaust provides? And the exhaust note is still pleasing?

I may have to give that a try. It's inexpensive and pretty easy to implement.

Steve

[shelbydoug]

You may be thinking of the reducer the wrong way?

Think of it like the cone shape on the adapter a header to the exhaust pipe would use AND it would go over the outside of the tail pipe and the chromed tip.

[8T03S1425]

I have a pair of 67 tips here for 3074. They are (without getting off my butt to go measure) the same OD. They just don't have the inner pipe.

There is an adage in design. "form follows function". It took me all of 5 minutes to angst over not having enough clearance between the two pipes.

Within a short time, my hair grew back. I could eat Gen Tsu's chicken again. I could sleep through the night. No problems.


You now have the choice of being just cool, or crossing over to the dark side and being super cool. Now the issue with that is seemingly highly intelligent individuals will be completely overwhelmed and miss 95% of what you explain to them.

They will just smile and nod graciously simply because they are too embarrassed they don't understand a word you are saying.

This is the price of being Super Cool. It's very lonely. The other thing is, why worry? If you don't like my solution, go to plan B...whatever that is?


Being the stubborn non-conformist that I am, I'd consider making a replacement plate that is reformed to permit the exhaust pipes to sit up in the tunnel and nix the x pipe in favor of a simple cross over balance tube.

If you knew my Mother, you would understand why someone would forgo worrying about something for 5 minutes when they could spend a lifetime parallelized with indecision, for fear of making a wrong decision. This is where the DuPont tagline, "Better Life Through Chemicals" hits home.

This is a tough crowd, as there is no one answer that is right for the mix of personalities.

Modifying a Shelby is a slippery slope. It starts with swapping out bias ply tires for radial tires and before you know it, the hood is being cut for a Roots supercharger.

I'm okay with being coolly bland or blandly cool as long as I'm not alienated from the Super Cool or the Rather Stodgy. 

[8T03S1425]

You may be thinking of the reducer the wrong way?

Think of it like the cone shape on the adapter a header to the exhaust pipe would use AND it would go over the outside of the tail pipe and the chromed tip.

You may be correct with my perception. If I understand what you're saying the reducer would fit over the OD of the last exhaust pipe and the OD of the exhaust tip feeder pipe. That's still a restriction, but I guess it's not all that restrictive.

I may be able to come in off the 1st floor window ledge. Serentity now.

[shelbydoug]

No need to hurry off of the ledge. It's nice up there. Wi-Fi works there too.