Hey 50Fraud,Your story on duals brings back very similar nastalgia to me. I remember my "initiation" to the term "duals" and the idea behind them. Musta been in the mid '50s when I was just a kid and my dad had duals put on his blue and white '55 Pontiac. He explained it to me as an improvement - I knew from his enthusiasm it musta been cool and something special! He was a P-38 pilot in the Pacific in WWII and appreciated the extra ooomph! Remember one time in that car we were outa town to a dog show (he raised Bulldogs) and we stopped at a small drivein before the road trip home. A couple of hip young men walked up to the car to admire the two tips sticking out from under the back bumper. My dad talked cars with the guys for awhile. This was something distinctive and out of the ordinary back in that time. Over the years, every time I thought of this moment, I wondered if anyone else out there remembered the single tail pipe culture? And how by simply adding another one ya could be something kinda special! Thanks 50Fraud for that "light bulb moment"..................................
The 50's was my Time & My Merc had Duals and every freind I had back then had Duals Just my 1 dollar 3 eighty
The main reason I have had this hot rod disease for 50+ years was a '48 Plymouth 4 door I heard when I was 8 or 9. As Al Drake pointed out in "Street was fun in '51", pipes & hubcaps was the first, & sometimes only thing(s) everyone did to a car. If you were older than 18, or had a note from your parents, the muffler shop would torch your front springs for a buck or 2 extra. It's too bad our younger folks can't experience the sound of a pair of 17" Douglass steelpacks on a '52 Plymouth, or 30" Porters on a '53 Olds. On a dual equipped Buick straight 8 with the idle speed set around 350 RPM you can hear each cylinder fire ... If we're lucky, Spence will tell us about the '41 Chev he equipped with 4 headpipes & 4 12" steelpacks ... Anyone considering a Y pipe should seek some help - it's kinda like telling a girl you're a professional guitar player when you really work at Pizza Hut.
Having been raised post muscle car era where EVERY car had dual exhaust it wasn't until years later I saw (or noticed) my first single exhaust and saw it as sickly looking. It was weird in '81 when my dad restored his '55 Nomad to 100% stock and removed the duals- happened again in '83 when he restored his '38 Ford. Duals are definitely cooler than a single.
I was so excited when I got exhaust put on my tired old 239, that even though they broke my medium port Y-block exhaust manifold for my 5-8 bank, I didnt really care. I ran with an exhaust leak untill someone was amazing enough to just give me one edb exhaust manifold to use. Its tough to beat the look of a car with the rear in the dirt, and two pencil tips poking out underneat the bumper, seperate by the license plate. When my 292 wound up in my car, the dump tubes stayed open untill it started getting cold enough for me to worry about critters crawling into my exhaust system. I don't think my neighbors were fond of me waking up at 6:30 a.m. and firing up my car to go to school. I only wish my mufflers were louder and had more rasp to them, but I also love its current nice and mellow tone.
when i bought my second chevelle in late 96 (66 malibu/283/pg) it was totally bone stock un-molested but very clean 2 door hardtop(rare for ca) , but i hated driving it and no one even gave it a second look ! i drove it likethat for about a week (and figured out how to make the leaky 2bbl back-fire through the single muffler at will )then in one weeked.... duals w/flowmasters , edlebrock intake ,holley carb and a set of 15x8 rallys ....i was in heaven ! FINK
Here is a good clip of a straight eight with factory duals. It's a 38 Mercedes 540k which has a driver engaged blower on it (not engaged in the clip). Nice burble for a stock car. Two big pipes come off the engine (and outside the hood) down to a huge single muffler. The outlet on the muffler is like 4.5"x2" where it splits to dual resonators. The pipes on the way out are 2.5 or 2.75" in diameter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3SFss22u1k The supercharged Graham with the straight six had a split manifold with dual pipes running back to the muffler then one pipe coming out the back. All that work and they couldn't run 4 feet of extra pipe.
This subject is still on my mind when I'm driving on the street. A couple of things that occur to me: 1) Circa 1952, duals were absolutely the tipoff that a car was modified and cool. When Cadillac ran them through the bumper as standard equipment in '52, it was absolutely newsworthy (others followed, of course, but Cad was first). Nowadays, lots of Japanese, American, and German stockers have duals, and a fair number of vehicles -- even SUV's -- have four exhaust tips. At one time, four tips was the exclusive signature of Ferrari, but now they're commonplace. 2) Many '50s cars with aftermarket duals, either steelpacks or glasspacks, had a distinctive and beautiful "motorboat" burble to them. I actually can't remember the last time I've seen a modified American V8 car that had that lovely tone. I tried Flowmaster's "Hushpower" mufflers a few years ago, hoping that they would have that tone, but they didn't. Seems like kind of a lost art today, and one that an enterprising muffler manufacturer would do well to re-create.
I like the twice pipes but I don't like the sound of a separate pipe system I like the sound of a balanced system with a H pipe or X pipe.
Heres a photo of my av8 after I had a local exhaust guy install duals. Center dump headers, pipes are turned out ahead of the rear wheels w chrome tips. Hes been doing exhaust work for a long time, so I told him I wanted something traditional. No crossover pipe, but the chrome tips are traditional, he called them bellflowers. When I picked up the A, we talked about flatheads, and as it turned out, he had synched the carbs on my A just to tinker on it. Got them better synched than I could. Anyway, I love the duals, love the syncopated idle, love the burble/snarl it makes. I don't have a radio in the A. It wouldn't make sense.
Your guy may be an old hand at muffler work, but he's wrong in calling your pipes Bellflowers. Read this thread for a discussion of Bellflowers, which are tailpipes that run along under the rear quarter panel of a '50s or later car: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=400550&highlight=bellflowers
well, like I said, he called the tips bellflowers. The article you referred to led me to the Jegs website, where I found this- a bellflower chrome tip. While its not installed in a classic bellflower configuration, that looks a lot like a longer version of what I have on my A.
At the Don Gartlis compound display is a 40 ford very low mileage and stock from the factory. as per Don the car came with factory dual exhausts ..The car is so original that many restorers use it as a reference. this was also on a TV show with Don.
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