hamhead

They are cheap.. but if they are the same thing SSA sells as someone said above... I wouldn't touch it with a five foot walking stick. Bad fitment and a bad muffler plagues the SSA name.

Still, the best way to get exhaust for cheap now is going custom. I got 2.5inch press-bent for 120 buckeroos. There are only four bends in a Tibby's exhaust, so its relatively straight. The flow of the exhaust in those areas goes down to about 2 1/4 inch with only minor crinkles. Mandrel won't do much to improve flow on this type of application. You wouldn't want press-bent on a CAI because it has 4 bends in about 4 feet of piping. Same with a header. But I really don't see mandrel making much difference here.

CyberShark

I had a custom exhaust for 3years..it worked well..loud as hell, but worked well. I waited untill I found a good deal on a mandrel bent exhaust and did. I got my KRD for $100. Had to wait a while but the custom held me off untill I got one.

REDZMAN

Hamhead, again, you are WRONG>

Stop pointing folks in the wrong direction.

4 turns in all that piping may not be much but Exhaust air needs to be SPEEDED out. Air that is getting smushed down in space then turbulent does NOT move quickly. There are notable differences in Crush (I like how you called it "press") Bends and in Mandrel Bends.

If you are paying for PERFORMANCE, then you want mandrel. Every ounce of everything counts.

If you want sound or just want to be able to say you have a custom exhaust, then go for crush.

The thing is though, even at shows, they will take off points for Crush, even if you had it labled like so....

Entry 1.

Custom 2.5 inch Catback Exhaust, Mandrel Bent, Flow Tested - 100 Points

Entry 2.

Custom 2.5 inch Catback Exhaust, <span style="colorlive">Press</span> Bent, Only Goes down 1/4 inch at bends and there's only 4 bends anyways - 3 Points.

hamhead

N/A it really won't make much difference, maybe a horsey or two. Sure, if your all-out performance (no cats, straight pipe, no muffler) then mandrel is the way to go. For the average street person, the air exits the headers, and hits the catalytic converter. A hi-flow isn't as bad, but some-most ppl here use the stock 2nd one I believe. Once the air hits that, velocity goes down, right near the exit of the gases. Bad idea for flow. Mandrel is the cause of all that raspiness too if people are after sound as well.

When your flowing more air, like turbo, then hell yea mandrel is god. N/A is not so much. A little difference but not much.

Next, we will all need titanium mandrel exhaust for 600 bucks more because its lighter. wink.gif

REDZMAN

But again Hamman, why waste the money on a crush bent exhaust?

1. You can get a mandrel bend exhaust for the same price if you look around.

2. You get better performance out of the Mandrel.

3. Granted, NA may not show much of any difference between the 2, but why waste the money on one if you have to upgrade it later to the other?

See what I'm saying?

Mad-Machine

Face it Hammy... REDZ is right on this issue. If it were just a matter of using larger diameter pipe and crush bending the corners down to the size you need... don;t you think all the car makers that build high performance cars would be using three in pipe crushed down to 2 1/2 to save money on a madrel bender?

hamhead

By no means am I arguing mandrel is not superior to press (and I'm saying press as there is a difference in crush bending machines) in most applications. I don't know what exhaust Ferraris run, but high dollar American cars such as the Corvette use press bent exhaust. And you do see decent gains from running larger pipes and mandrel on those cars, about 10-15whp on Corvettes.

The 3 to 2 1/2 is a little excessive. I would never buy an exhaust that in the bends restricted the exhaust 1/6th of the straight pipe diameter. Thats a 17% smaller restriction in the bends. Mine is about 9% according to the shop and what I've seen.

Depending on his area mandrel may not be available. I know in larger cities you can get mandrel for about the same, probably a little bit more. Most shops don't use machines that do 2.5 mandrel bends. They cost near a million dollars. You have to be sure your going to get the customers needing that size pipe in order to buy that machine.