Functional Lake Pipes - Stainless vs. Chrome - Single or Triple Outlets ???

Just spent a good hour with the search engine getting an education on Lake(s) Pipes. I plan on running them along with the duals I have on my 51 Ford. Probably won't use a cut out, I will just uncork the pipes.

Questions:

I read over and over that the new chrome pipes have lousy chrome that peels quickly, and in all likelihood there is a single manufacturer that supplies them to all of the different distributors. Is this accurate? Is there a better quality of pipe available if one is willing to pay up for them? Any recommendations?

What about stainless? Does it dis-color badly? Can they be polished out or are they manufactured from a lesser grade of stainless? Are there different manufacturers for the stainless pipes vs. the chrome pipes? Again any pros or con or recommendations?

Single outlet vs. triple outlet. When did the triples become available and was it just a styling statement?
I thought that the triples were all functional outlets but it looks like the second and third outlets are now bolt ons and are non functional??? Any benefit to true triples other than less restriction? Might be a pain to have to uncork 6 outlets instead of just two.

I will not run them unless they are hooked up so that their appearance and life expectancy as they are used is important to me.

Thanks in advance for your help...

js

 

ive had the mooneyes bellflowers on my car for 3 years. I believe they have the same chrome treatment as the lakes. they look fine and hold up well, cant complain. as far as tripples, IMHO tripple screams 70's fifties.

 

Thanks. That is the kind of info I was looking for especially the comment on the triples. js

 

I'll second that: I haven't seen triples on any of the cars in any of the books or magazines I have from the 1950s. Most of the mid-50s ones are singles and don't even have a blockoff at the end - just a curved outlet. There are also a fair number of them with a blockoff plate that exit just under the front fender. I'm guessing somewhere along the line Western Auto or someone came up with the idea of the blockoff bolted onto the longer pipe.

 

my 2 cents....

if you can find stainless, do it. when corked, theyll build up humidity n water from the exhaust, that cant get out. itll rust from the inside out. i had exhaust dumps put behind the front wheels of my 58 chevy, and the first time i uncapped em, after about a week of runnin, a good amount of water had settled in em, and they had started to rust on the inside. like i said, just my 2 cents.

 

On the other hand, you could just leave them off completely. The less stuff you bolt on a custom, the better off you are.

'Course, that's just my opinion.

-Abone.

 

That and functional lakes sound like ****.

 

Agreed...

If you want to run open exhaust, simply unbolt the caps on your headers...

R-

 

Appreciate the input... I think it might add a little something to the rockers and would compliment the side trim.

I do not recall them sounding that bad. I recall them having more of a rapping sound, kind of like a bike with TT pipes? Maybe my memory serves me wrong?

Thanks for the info...

That makes a lot of sense... Thanks!

 

As far as I'm concerned, nothing screams '50's kustom like Lakes pipes (other than fender skirts)...

Nice looking shoebox JS...the Lakers would look good on it...

R-

 

I agree... Thanks...

 

never saw a car with lakes pipes that wouldn't have looked better without them.

 

I have stainless headers on my roadster. They looked good when they were first put on but now they turned a puke yellow color and I can't stand them. I don't know if the lakes will get hot enough to discolor but they will look like **** if they do and they are near impossible to repolish with out a major stripdown and wheel work. My 2 cents.

 

Thanks Koz. Sorry about your predicament but that is the type of info I am looking for. Is the dis-coloration all the way down to the collectors?

How about it? Anyone running stainless lake pipes and have this type of problem?

 

I figured it was late 1950s or so. Personally I wouldn't consider 1960 "period," unless you're building something with canted quad headlights and sheetmetal fins, but that's just me.

 

My friend has single outlet lakes that are operated by a ****erfly valve in the exhaust(which never seals 100% just FWIW) and they sound OK to me, just not particularly great. There's some soot around the tip but not too bad, shoot I don't know if his are chrome or stainless, I'd bet chrome though. There's some slight discoloration where the pipes exit from under the car behind the front wheels.

 

Your shoebox looks right on the money as it is, I wouldn't change a thing on that car if it were mine.

I've never been a fan of the tripple cap lakers. They might be ok if you have a Monte Carlo with a metalflake roof but I always thought the single cappers were a lot cl***ier.

 

Ive never had problems with any chrome lakes I have used or seen my buddys use. singles look the best, the triples are just "to much business" in my book. Plus not all the triples work, just the single on the end. If your not going to use the block plate, I would cut the end(block off plate outlet) off. So you have a clean looking exhuast at a 45 degree angle. My two cents.

 

Stainless pipes , 50's period ? ? ?
Nice looking car .
How about straight pipes with pee shooters through the bumper .

 

Nice car. doesnt need lake pipes to look better but if its your style and want'm get'm. if u dont like them they're easy to take off anyway and no harm to the car either way,.. Id put some fatter whitewalls first however to dress it up and match that nice white interior,... the lakepipes I had got pits in them and rusted a bit, I never really cleaned them, no discoloration. but then again they werent hooked up just dummies.

 

I'm another one who agrees with this. Beware the gookwagon.

 

A "gookwagon" in the '50's was a car that had so much after-market "Western Auto/JC Whitney/Honest Charley" **** that nearly every square inch of it had an easy bolt-on or stick-on items on it...Lakes pipes, fender skirts, nosing and decking, frenched headlights, different grille, whitewalls and hubcaps DO NOT a "gookwagon" make...

R-

 

Were did the trem "gookwagon" come from ? I could take a real good guess if it wasn't a 50's term , as you say .

 

Thanks for the post.

I agree that they look cl***ier or cleaner.

The rear view

So I guess I know where you stand on the Fuzzy Dice question?

 

Generally not a fan of lake pipes, but if it's them or that borla catback from a silverado that's on there, go for the lake pipes.

*****in car BTW.

 

Thanks

 

Hey, I said 'beware' not 'it is' or 'it will be.'

I used the expression 'beware the gookwagon' to say "don't be tempted to add stuff on just because you can." Maybe I should have said that instead. Of course if the owner believes it really needs those pipes to balance out the look, well, that's their business.

Me? I think it's a nice clean car as is and doesn't need pipes down the side.

 

I understood what you meant. There is always one guy at every show that has every accessory known to man bolted on to his car. It becomes a parody of the era it was meant to celebrate.

 

js. The headers on my roadster go to the collector where I have steel pipe the rest of the way back so I don't really know how far back they're cooked. The headers are yellow all the way to the collector fairly equally. My thought is its probably like putting paint on the pipes to determine your balance tube location but I don't know. I was hoping somebody with a stainless high zoot system all the way back knew. Probably not many of those guys on the Hamb,(just kidding).

 

For the record, my roadsters exhaust is jet hot coated back to the mufflers, which are s/s, then s/s from there back. Part of the reason I did it like that was to avoid the browning effect on stainless. For 10 years it's ben good with only minor discolouration on the mufflers, the tail pipes are fine.

I don't think you could avoid discolouration with functional side pipes so close to the heat source.