Technical Tip for those who have electric cut-outs

I would lubricate them with high temperature Never Seize, it's rated good for 2200 degrees and stands a better chance of lasting longer than WD-40.

 

Was that pun intended?

 

Back when I was a teenager I would have given my left nut to have an electric cut out on my car but these days I can’t imagine a situation where I would open them. Cars I’ve had that went to the track had headers with easily removable exhaust systems. Several of my hot rods have had period correct dump tubes that I don’t ever remember uncapping. I guess I just don’t like the sound of uncorked street cars. That slow idle, pockety, pockety, pockety, sound reminds me of a tractor. It just isn’t as appealing as a fast idle, ground pounding lope. Even better with quiet mufflers so you can hear the pinging in the headers.


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Regarding your tips, I always wondered how an electronically controlled butterfly or slide valve could survive the heat and undercar environment without seizing up and for how long. That’s the worst of the worst under there. Sounds like they are not maintenance free. Is the mechanism mostly stainless steel?
BTW, I have the old fashioned kind of cut-outs on my current ‘56 Chevy.


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Hey B,
Nice cut out set up on your Chevy. Back in 1958, we had to do something to get the exhaust out without having headers installed. So, our muffler man made the custom down tube tips almost in line with stock Impala "Y" down tube exit. That was almost the best way to get the exhaust out fast with no bends in the way. We wanted headers, but then we could not race the 348 Impala in the A/Stock class.

Like most, it was a necessity and not for show or to irritate those around us. When the exhaust caps were off, that meant going to Cherry Avenue to have an encounter or two. Those open exhaust cut outs were allowed at Lions, but only during the timing/tuning runs and not during class eliminations.
The crawling under to cap them was for emergencies after ending the race or capping them up to drive back through the streets to the local drive-in restaurant parking lots. The scavengers we had made were used, but made a funny sound and did not improve performance. Plus, it added additional weight when we had two dual pipe set up under the Impala. It looked cool, but not worth the effort and cost. No, we did not sell them, they stayed in the backyard garage rafters until 1998 when the old house was sold, including those pipes still sitting up there.

As we all know, there is a certain rpm level that makes the open exhaust mellow out and not sound like uncapped headers. But, we were all looking for the most help in getting our cars to perform the best, while being legal. You are right, if we had those electronic devices, it would have saved us countless crawling under the Impala at the drags and on the streets of Bixby Knolls.

For those that never experienced crawling under the car to cap or uncap the covers, we did it in the snowy environment of Big Bear Lake/City, during our Long Beach High School annual gathering at Big Bear the next day after every Christmas. It was a tradition since the early 50s. It helped in the encounters, but not as much as adjusting the carburetors.

Jnaki
The electronic exhaust cut outs are not traditional as they were not made back then, but in the recent times, some builders do install them for their customers. But, also, gone are the strict rule, factory stock classes for the everyday daily driver hot rods, to race each other at the weekend drags, too.

OR ONE, DIRECT FROM THE MANUFACTURER:

 

I wonder about those issues as well. What about carbon
build up on the internal moving gates or slides? Several
years ago I was at the back to the fifties affair in the St
Louis area. A company called Weedburner Exhaust or
some thing similar had a chassis on display with a big block chevy blower motor. Their system on the exhaust
of the chassis had two separate butterfly valves that
opened and closed on the same shaft. One closed and the other opened opposite of the other. It appeared to be very well engineered and constructed. The system
seemed to work well and was quite when closed. Even
when they would blip the big block. The system was expensive at $800.00m or so. I have not seen any ads
regarding this product in quite some time. Anyone
familiar with this product?

 

St. Paul not St. Louis.

 

Jnaki, that photo of your ‘58 sure brings back good memories! Around ‘64-‘65 my good friend and ‘cross the street neighbor had a maroon ‘58 Impala with a 348 and a 3 spd .... and cut-outs. I was always envious. He would “uncork it” sometimes on weekends and drive the neighbors crazy. Of course, being the youngest I got to lie on the ground and do the dirty work. It was a privilege!


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Easy, there, Austin ! Don't go and blow a fuse or strip out a water pump bolt in Bumbf##k, Egypt ! I can't attend your funeral with this Covid shit in the air ! LOL. If we ever have another LSRU, I'll look you up and we'll have a brewski. I'll be the one in the red Deuce highboy roadster with buckskin threads and yellow steelies. Oh, plus it has a/c, heated seats, overdrive, and a Ford 8" with positraction. Should be easy to find ! LOL again.

 

A brewski or three help to complete the job.

 

No pun intended....

 

OK!!!!!!!!!!!....I guess I'm a poser!
Always loved a noisey car (and have the crappy hearing to prove it)
I told my cam grinder (Ken---Delta Cams) "I have waited almost 50 years to build a hot rod and my golly I want it to sound like a hot rod"! Snotty idle.....noisy open headers.... and too dangerous to drive on wet roads! No power 'anything' (I pay for it during months like now!)
Where I live there are a LOT of Harleys, so the "poe-poe" are cool with and old man driving his off-topic SBF pony car. with the open headers 90% of the time.
Had several 'Shivel-lay' guys admit.........."a cammed up small block Ford is music to their ears......too"!
So is poser suppose to be capitalized?!! or little letters. I wanna get-it-right!
6sally6

 

This thread is exhausting.

 

I see what you did there you sly devil...

 

You youngsters will change your mind perhaps once you've got 7 decades behind you, and you find your body worn out from all the wrenching, and building. Then you might also feel different about uncapping your headers, while laying on the ground, or kneeling.
I used to do the uncapping when I got to the drags, or if I was at a cruise in and they had a "loudest pipes" competition. Now I just flip a switch at either place, and a few seconds later I'm good to go. End of the day I flip it again, and all is quiet again. And my body feels just the same as before too!

 

Ah my thing...

 

Cut outs were chevy oil filter canisters welded on the header pipes with the cap for an outlet . Take the bolt out and remove the cap and they were BIG. And loud. LOL Lippy

 

Nothing quite like tradition Back in the day ya know it was hot rods and customs, but i guess as you get up in years, you gotta switch over to them street rod things

 

Naw, ya heard what ya wanted to hear. They just said sounds good for a Ford

 

Electric cutouts what will they think of next? Electronic fuel injection?

 

I refuse to be a part of these childish antics.


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I think two words could apply here....’poser’ and ‘imposer’. The poser inflicts (imposes) his will (loud exhaust) on a captive audience in the case of fairground events, or is a ‘drive by shooter’, in effect, on public streets. I once read a summary of such situations that said “a smoker and a non-smoker cannot be equally free in the same room”.

Ray

 

Doug's Header's feature a rotary style valve on ball bearings and not a flapper valve
https://www.streetmusclemag.com/fea...adds-noise-with-new-electric-exhaust-cutouts/

 

^^^I have a set of those I'll sell if anyone wants to be the koolest kat at the kruise-in.

 

LOL I read the entire post by the OP and it never occurred to me that he was talking about exhaust cutouts. I thought he was talking about the cutout our for the battery, like is required in some race applications. Gawd I'm dumb.

 

Wow my post certainly took on a life of its own hahaha by the way I recently found out that the cutouts we're not bound up at all. It turns out that 2 position spring loaded switch had cracked behind the dash and when pressing the open mode it was barely making contact only enough to hear the motor try to open but then stop. Got a new Switch and everything is fine. Sorry for causing all the Uproar girls and boys

 

How cheap ? What size ?

 

We made due with junk yard cut off, gas tank filler tubes and their matching gas caps! Never too much noise when young! Faster, probably...maybe?

 

I'll put a tape on them when I get off work but as memory serves they are 3" diameter still on the Y pipes.

 

All I can say is that American Graffiti would have sucked as a film if it were missing the gas station scene where Milner is uncapping the pipes.