IMO, cutouts are like fuzzy dice, my own preference in an S/C app would be some 1-3/4 LTs, high flow cats connected to a 3 to 3.5 inch exhaust system feeding a good X or H pipe and some bullet mufflers all mandrel bent. Easily a 500hp exhaust system (if a bit loud).

 

I'm not so worried about the power it makes. I think its cool that you can have a switch that you can take our the muffs and h-pipes and go straight off of the manifolds/LT's

 

I think a cutout system would be cheaper than dropping a load of cash on a full exhaust- plus I could keep the nice, smooth sound of the OE exhaust.

 

Depends I guess, but if I was going for a set of cutouts, I'd go after the H-pipe, there is some benefit to keeping the cross-over active in the system (I can attest to this when we installed an X-pipe on a project car of my brother's, it made a very noticable difference in the power of the engine), before that and you end up with two 4 bangers coupled to the same crankshaft in terms of noise (power pulses produced in the exhaust - the more the better - part of the reason those fart can exhausts sound so annoying another good example are the first vipers with the side exit exhaust and no cross-over). The resonant (rarefaction waves) tuning also changes considerably when you change the length of the exhuast system (much like changing the runner length on an intake).

 

Exactly.

 

I still stand by my reccomendation to plumb it in behind the H-pipe, IMO you will have fewer tuning problems if you do.

 

there goes the Ozone layer!

 

So are these welded on to the end of the header or into the H-pipe before the cats? Would they have to cut a hole in the h-pipe if they welded them together?

 

My buddy went right off of the stock manifolds, no cut outs. He just bought 2 L pipes and clamped them on to his 97 GT. It sounds mean!