questions for the 'old timers' and exhaust gurus, too

landon1 · Post by **landon1** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 11:25 am

since cherry bombs were such a hit back then, how were they installed when the muffler inlet/outlets are offset? so far, i've seen guys just leaving the over-axle pipes off, just adding them to the tailpipe by the valance, or going header-mounted. all the guys that still have stock-appearing duals don't show how they did theirs. i can't remember how the mufflers were set up on my car when i got it, but i do know that after i blew-up a muffler, i just straight-piped it, but wouldn't that mess-up your over-axle pipes? idr how it looked or went together since it was so long ago.

basically, to summarize, how would you install a straight glasspack when you're supposed to have offset inlet/center outlet muffler?

also, what are the "cool" things people did back then? so far, i've come up with air shocks, cherry bombs, headers, holley double pumper, cragars.....what else???

mopar71 · Post by **mopar71** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 5:39 pm

Remember the giant tires in the back and little skinny rims in the front?

Like The Rat Fink Cars!

landon1 · Post by **landon1** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 8:51 pm

nope lol...i'm only 21, so i'm trying to get back in the time of circa 1971-1975ish (NOT disco) i could ask my pops if he remembers since that was the time of his cuda, charger, etc.

Smellslike1974 · Post by **Smellslike1974** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 9:25 pm

Not all cars with that wheel combo were Fink cars,matter of fact,Ed Roths cars are some of the most rarest cars to find.

Serious Satellite · Post by **Serious Satellite** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 9:22 am

landon1 wrote:since cherry bombs were such a hit back then, how were they installed when the muffler inlet/outlets are offset? so far, i've seen guys just leaving the over-axle pipes off, just adding them to the tailpipe by the valance, or going header-mounted. all the guys that still have stock-appearing duals don't show how they did theirs. i can't remember how the mufflers were set up on my car when i got it, but i do know that after i blew-up a muffler, i just straight-piped it, but wouldn't that mess-up your over-axle pipes? idr how it looked or went together since it was so long ago.

basically, to summarize, how would you install a straight glasspack when you're supposed to have offset inlet/center outlet muffler?

also, what are the "cool" things people did back then? so far, i've come up with air shocks, cherry bombs, headers, holley double pumper, cragars.....what else???

Cosmetics: Raised white letters on your tires . ..added a Cobra CB. . ..8 track tape player (Quad if you were high end back then). . .footprint gas, brake, clutch pedals. ..(hang 10). . . Almost everybody I knew back then incorporated a peace symbol onto their car somewhere, whether it was a medallion hanging from the mirrors or a window decal. . .Chrome was big on the engine dress up kits. . .there seems to be some resistance to it now, but it was big back in the midwest at least. . .

as far as the Cherry Bombs. ..I don't remember. . .

I always liked the Thrush mufflers back then. . .their Thrush bird decal was so close to the Roadrunner

Glasspacks were too cool . . .

As far as performance, you've got it right on the carbs. . .Holley. . . and the other performance mods were pretty simple and straightforward back then. If you were raising the car with air shocks or shackles, as far as rims, a lot of guys I knew would run 14's on the front and 15's on the back. . .okay, me included. . . .the wider the tire on the back the better. . .

landon1 · Post by **landon1** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 10:29 am

yep i figured the barefoot pedal lol...i think my car was a lot more 70s when i was in high shcool...i had a beaded chain around the mirror with a glass bottle of what appeared to be magic potion lol, fuzzy seat covers, air shocks jacked all the way up, and Moroso GOLD air cleaner and valve covers....i just figured when i get my car done i kinda want to do some period-correct mods, since everyone else does all the modern stuff.

is the grant steering wheel craze a more modern thing? i have the grant 3spoke chrome wheel right now

i was looking at 8 track players on ebay awhile ago - they have some really nice ones still in the box. not sure about puttin a cb on haha. i've heard about thrushes, also purple hornies...just not sure what i want to do yet on that, but i know one thing - my sidepipes at idle are TOO QUIET and are really choking performance, so my advice to smells like is if you don't use the vette pipes, get the shielded style - at least then you can run 3" pipe from the header right to the sidepipe (have to cut it, but you'd have a lot better flow than going from 3" to 2" then back to 3.5"

i'm pretty much sold on the double pumper...all i do is drive around town, and i've been talking to a cat that had one on his 396 camaro and says it was a lot better than his vacuum secondary holley. maybe even looking at 3.73 or 4.10s, 11s, whatever...mopar .509 cam, stall converter ( i think TCI Break-A-Way should do the trick-maybe someone can clue me in on this...)

Serious Satellite · Post by **Serious Satellite** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 11:40 am

is the grant steering wheel craze a more modern thing? i have the grant 3spoke chrome wheel right now

I don't remember Grant Steering Wheels back then, but then again I had the Mopar Tuff wheel on my RR, and the standard 74 Satty steering wheel on the Satty, but I do remember a lot of guys going much smaller on the steering wheel. . .

Ronnman · Post by **Ronnman** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 11:53 am

landon1 - When I was in high school 68-72, I remember most people were installing Thrush mufflers and terminating then before the rearend (no pipes after the mufflers.) Money was tight then and you would need a custom exhaust bent to run pipes to the bumper on most cars. Cherry Bombs were losing favor as they had too much of a rap-rap-rap sound as opposed to the Thrush mufflers which had a deep rumbleling sound. Small steering wheels were also the in thing, 10-12 inch diameter chrome spoke wheels like the Grant with the foam grip. Some folks had cragers and some had chrome reverse dished wheels (cheaper) which looked like stock rims chromed or a combination of wheels. Others had Keystone rims and various other rim manufacturers whose names I can't even remember. Also, chrome engine dress up stuff, like valve covers and air cleaner mainly, other accessories cost too much. If you had a 2 barrel carb, most would install a "high rise" manifold and a Holley 4-barrel carburetor. Most added accessories were made by Cal Custom. Inside people were coloring the dome lights to match there car color if possible and adding lights under dash to shine in the front floorboard areas. The foot petals and 8-tracks were common. FM radio was coming of age as stereo was being broadcast. So people were instaling 8-tracktape/FM stereo add on units below the dash.
Ron

fourforty6pac · Post by **fourforty6pac** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 4:42 pm

OK, I probably shouldn't admit this but I feel I should confess. Keep in mind this was long ago and I was a young and well for a lack of a better word ignorant. Just before I got my driver license, my older sister bought a torred 72 ssp. It had some cool options that were new to me, am/fm/cassette, power windows, a/c, 318, auto. When I first saw it I knew I wanted one bad. Well I got my chance to own hers after I got in an accident in it. I was kinda forced into buying it, but I didn't mind. As soon as I got my mitts on it I started to do unmentionable things to it. First I put air shocks and N50x15 T/A's on 10 inch chromies w/baby moons. Later I got keystones all the way around. One day I was at the bone yard when I saw a 72 road runner that was rolled. I bought it for 300 and took it home. It had a 340 in it but that wasn't good enough f r me so I had it bored 60 over, got 11.5:1 trw's , killer cam, head work ect. I put $1200 into it, a lot of money in the winter of 72. While I was waiting for the machine work I put the 8.75, hood, road runner grill in the ssp and had the 727 rebuilt. I knew it would take me awhile to get all the work done to the 340 so I started to customize the interior. First I took the cassette player of the console and we smashed the hell out of it with bats. When that was done the factory am/fm got the same treatment and was replaced with Craig indash am/fm/cassette. I was so proud. Now here's where it gets weird. I didn't like the stock buckets the were still perfect in both cars so I went to the fabric store and bought some orange crushed velvet. I cut some of that crap so it would fit in the area of the inserts. I folded the edges and glued them with rubber cement. Then I glued the inserts I made on those mint, black seats. I didn't know till years later that I kinda copied the orange and black mopar interior. But it didn't end there by no means, I still was loaded with more even better ideas that would change the way people looked at custom cars. Well one day I was looking at rummage sales for tools when I saw it. It was some orange shag carpeting, needless to say the Ideas really started to haunt me so I bought that stuff. As soon as I got home I glued that crap to all the lower door panels (the armrest pads were really hard to do but if all you guys want help doing this to your classics I can give you pointers), and I still had enough to do the floor. The floor was hard to figure out but as always I had a solution, I would cut it in sections because I couldn't form it like the factory did. When I had all the sections I pulled out the secret weapon, rubber cement. I glued that stuff right to that nice black carpet. It looked OK because the shag hid the seams pretty good. To me the dash pad needed something but I just couldn't figure it out and then it hit me like a brick $hit house I can put some of that orange velvet stuff there so I did. Well I thought the black interior trim didn't look good so I painted that orange to match. I even etched a small pot leaf on the quarter windows and colered them orange with an orange marker (I was 17 and it was the 70's). It didn't look too bad and when it was done I did get a second place trophy. When I got the motor stuff done I took it to school and my shop teacher helped put it together. That little 340 sounded so cool and I couldn't wait till she was broken in so I could see what this thing could do. I got the perfet opportunity to do so on night when a 71 torino gt was sitting next to me at the light. I let her rip from the line and I was really impressed. I had him of the line from the get go when I shifted to second something went seriously wrong, I heard a loud knock, I felt like someone stole my favorite puppy. I ended up selling that car and moving on to bigger (blocks) and better things. I wished I didn't sell it cuz that motor probably could have been repaired. I guess we all do stupid stuff when we are young. I hope you can forgive me.
Wow! It is true, I feel better after I confessed.
Over 15 later I was at my parents and my mom told me to get my car parts out of the attic. I almost forgot about that stuff. I had a complete mint black interior from the rolled over runner .I used that stuff to replace a worn interior in a road runner I had at the time.
There ya go landon I hope I gave you some worth while suggestions.

landon1 · Post by **landon1** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 7:08 pm

nope not lookin to go that 70-licious

but good story...a guy i worked with had a 442 that he said they put shag on the dash, and dressed all the interior trim with budweiser bottle caps lol....

i figured i'd try to keep the inside mostly stock, but with the barefoot pedal, maybe take out the console and put in a hurst shifter, under-dash 8 track, maybe get my fuzzy seat covers back on, dice valve caps and lock knobs, something hangin on the mirror, glasspacks, i want to put the performance part decals on my windows, replace my air shocks, put on cragar s/s wheels with 27" tires on the back, maybe 25" on the front, double pumper, edelbrock intake, .509 cam and lifters, stall converter, maybe 4.10-11 rears, new chrome dress-up kit or re-anodize my moroso stuff gold or blue....that should be pretty sweet i think and kinda retro

Serious Satellite · Post by **Serious Satellite** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:20 pm

Well, since it's confessional time. ..I did replace the stock black carpet with burnt orange shag carpet. . .

and I'm glad someone else remembers the thrush mufflers. . .I'd forgotten all about the velvet stuff. . .a friend had one in his chevy van. ..

landon1 · Post by **landon1** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:38 pm

i've been checking 8tracks out on ebay and they do have some am/fm/8 track complete underdash stereos that could be cool...then i could run more than just the single speaker in the dash...it'll be sweet when i get er done - even though it'll pry take awhile longer

fourforty6pac · Post by **fourforty6pac** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:03 pm

Landon, check out the Craig Power Play. They can be mounted on the floor or console and sound pretty good. Ever consider a factory cassette recorder?

landon1 · Post by **landon1** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:12 pm

yep to the factory cassette, but the price is out of my range

RS23-71 · Post by **RS23-71** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:16 pm

landon1 wrote:since cherry bombs were such a hit back then, how were they installed when the muffler inlet/outlets are offset? so far, i've seen guys just leaving the over-axle pipes off, just adding them to the tailpipe by the valance, or going header-mounted. all the guys that still have stock-appearing duals don't show how they did theirs. i can't remember how the mufflers were set up on my car when i got it, but i do know that after i blew-up a muffler, i just straight-piped it, but wouldn't that mess-up your over-axle pipes? idr how it looked or went together since it was so long ago.

basically, to summarize, how would you install a straight glasspack when you're supposed to have offset inlet/center outlet muffler?

also, what are the "cool" things people did back then? so far, i've come up with air shocks, cherry bombs, headers, holley double pumper, cragars.....what else???

I know when I bought my car back in '87 it had cherry bombs on it if you look here. I know its not the best angle but its the only one I got right now. As far as I could see it looked like it had/has the orginal h-pipe and over the axle exhaust with original exhaust hangers but with just cherry bombs added in. Did the original mufflers plymouth put on the car have offset exhaust/inlets? All my exhaust all seemed to line up perfect and look totally stock except for the cherry bombs when I bought the car.

I know the only change I ever made to it was to removed the stock hi-po exhaust manifolds that cracked (wish I had kept them in storage) and replaced them with a set of hooker headers.

Road Runner Nest

questions for the 'old timers' and exhaust gurus, too

questions for the 'old timers' and exhaust gurus, too

Re: questions for the 'old timers' and exhaust gurus, too

Re: questions for the 'old timers' and exhaust gurus, too