[Fromage]

Some related info that may or may not be useful...

Side exit is illegal as per Ontario highway traffic Act... This may or may not matter to you.

I was in the same boat about a month ago. Same truck, 84 CDN BJ60 in Ontario. The OEM exhaust lasted two years in Ontario salt. It finally fell off completely and I was left with two options - a 500$ set of pipes, or making something custom.

I built my own out of true mandrel bent 3 inch stainless steel (409) pipe, which I welded. I spent about 250$ on pipe on Ebay from a seller called Mandrel bending solutions. These are real mandrel bends with no distortion or crimping of the pipe - A lot smoother than muffler shop bends. The pipe comes in straight lengths of 4 feet with some bent up sections on a 6 inch radius, and you have to cut out the angles and cut the straight pipe to length, and then seam weld everything. It is a real pain in the ass to do correctly, it took me 8 hours of fussing. Total cost was about 300$, but I did all the work and I am really finicky when it comes to exhaust.

Due to the routing of the exhaust on the BJ60 (and the skidplate being a real PITA with no real clean routing solution except for stock) it is a lot of work to snake it around everything cleanly. This muffler shop might be good and do a nice job for 600$, but they might also run the exhaust straight back and it could hang low and become a ground anchor, or be a real hack job. Muffler shops sometimes do really awful work and they are often used to american cars with lots of exhaust routing room.

If I were you, I would make sure I am getting a really good system for 600$. Check out work that they guy has done to other cars. Ask local hotrodders for their opinions and recommendations. Make sure he has a tube bender on site and that he is not welding the angles in (this is too time consuming for most muffler shops to do correctly and for 600$ it would be a hack job). If this guy does not have a great reputation, get an estimate (not over the phone) from someone who does.

edit:

As far as materials, there is heavy-wall aluminized pipe that is available from most muffler shops that is very durable. You usually have to ask for it. Above that, you have 409 stainless, which is what I use. It is the cheap stainless. It does rust and turn to a gold/brown colour but it is much more resistant than aluminized pipe. The best is the polish-quality 304, which lasts forever, but to retain the properties you have to weld it in a very complex manner (gas purge on the inside of the pipe and MIG with correct wire or TIG) and it is SUPER expensive and time consuming. On a sooty diesel, that coats the inside of the pipes with black gooey sooty goo, the welds usually last a very long time even on 409 with the 'improper' welding procedure.

FWIW 409 is what the major OEMs such as Toyota use for catalytic converters and such. A lot of cars have 409 exhausts that last 10-15 years in Ontario.

The OEM Toyota is good because it is painless to install, but the pipes rust out quick here. If I was in your shoes, I would try and get a stainless custom exhaust built up for 6-700$ installed in 2.5 inch pipe, or go OEM and expect to replace it in a couple of years.