Good aftermarket exhaust suggesetions

[bryan89]

hi all,
Its about time to replace my leaky, rusty exhaust on the 4runner, cat back.
what options are out there for exhaust system replacements? is LC engineering the only place making stuff? i am worried about the giant magnaflow muffler on there. its a straight through design.
i dont want anything resembling a loud, hollow drone or fart can rice burner exhaust. the more mellow the better in my book.

any suggestions?

 

[flash02]

I put the full header back exhaust form LC Engineering on my 4Runner, it's not loud at all, nice tone and good performance, not to mention its ceramic coated stainless steel. It's not cheep but you get what you pay for.

Sent from my iPhone using IH8MUD

 

[bryan89]

yeah, its ceramic coated all right, but its not ALL stainless steel. at least according to their description online, it has steel flanges, and on top of that i would bet my lunch that they used steel rod to weld it all together with. Why would you go through all that trouble of stainless pipe and then put regular crappy steel in it? So, Im not sold on the whole "stainless" exhaust.
ideally, it would be the best option.

yeah the pipe is stainless, but when was the last time you saw the middle of the pipe rust out? not too common i would guess.
where it counts is all the weld joints. thats where its still steel and it will still rust. the ceramic coating should help some, but i dont know how good it is. what happens when it gets scratched up? wont it just start rusting like a regular exhaust system?

it is good to hear that it doesn't sound like a fart cannon though. i wonder if that is the general consensus.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

I have the LC Engineering stainles exhaust (and header) on my 4Runner. Why do you think it's welded with normal steel? I haven't noticed the welds rusting.

As far as the flange on the header goes, my understanding is that a stainless flange is too prone to warping through the heat cycles and therefore tends to leak. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that they tried it both ways and had less trouble with the steel flange.

 

[bryan89]

while i dont have any hard evidence (as i havent gotten them on the phone yet) but i suspected that the welds weren't stainless because of the magnaflow muffler. i have seen a couple magnaflow stainless mufflers on friends rigs that had rusty welds. (

now, i dont know if magnaflow is making the whole kit for them or if they are fabbing it up in house themselves but my guess is that if magnaflow is providing the whole thing that they would probably use the same process to weld the rest.

i guess that doesnt necessarily mean they cant have two different quality levels of stainless exhaust at magnaflow (like entry level and high end) but im just speculating here. i have just seen it a couple times on other trucks and it pissed me off ya know? ppl pay extra money for something to last and they get a polished turd that is just as good as the regular one.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Ours has been installed about 4 years. I'll take a look this afternoon when the 17yo gets home from school but I'm pretty sure there isn't any rust anywhere on the exhaust system. I hate rust and I'm pretty sure I would have noticed it by now if there was much, if any.

 

[bryan89]

well, i just got off the phone with LC engineering.
nice guys.

they said that it is manufactured in house (minus the muffler from magnaflow).

they used steel flanges because a comparable stainless steel flange thick enough to resist warping would have been cost prohibitive. too expensive to sell he said.

the welds are done with stainless rod. but, they are done with 409 stainless, which apparently is a blend of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. so it is magnetic and could rust if the coating wore off and was exposed to the elements.

but to that point, he also mentioned that you should frequently spray off the exhaust system when you spray off the truck because what can happen is that the minerals in the crap you splash up there can start to rust themselves and that can eat your coating off and start it to rust.
so maybe that is what i am seeing occasionally.

the high flow cats they have are also bare stainless steel. they have to be that way apparently.

anyways, seems like a solid option.
but is it the only one for our trucks?

 

[arndog123]

I have an LC Engineering catback on my '85 and a Borla catback on my '86. I think the Borla sounds a little better.

 

[bryan89]

I have an LC Engineering catback on my '85 and a Borla catback on my '86. I think the Borla sounds a little better.

where did you get the borla kit from?

 

[KLF]

I would ask around at the hot rod meets, see if you can find a local custom shop that will build you exactly what you want, to fit the way you want it. That's what I did, found a good shop that's been in business for decades. He let me stand there and watch him build it, it was really interesting. Totally stainless end-to-end, I think I paid about $400, including a new cat and a Magnaflow stainless muffler. Now that I've had it off and back on, that thing is friggin' HEAVY, much thicker wall tube than the stuff you usually see. He told me if any part of it ever fails to come back and he'd replace it for free.

 

[GRM]

I grabbed a take off FJ Cruiser exhaust for $40 with 10k miles on it. I then bought $50 worth of various bends, and exhaust tubing. 2 hours with my welder, and it was installed. It still works great, although is loud, because its 2.25"

 

[bryan89]

I would ask around at the hot rod meets, see if you can find a local custom shop that will build you exactly what you want, to fit the way you want it. That's what I did, found a good shop that's been in business for decades. He let me stand there and watch him build it, it was really interesting. Totally stainless end-to-end, I think I paid about $400, including a new cat and a Magnaflow stainless muffler. Now that I've had it off and back on, that thing is friggin' HEAVY, much thicker wall tube than the stuff you usually see. He told me if any part of it ever fails to come back and he'd replace it for free.

thats not a bad idea klf. i could get everything (muffler/cat/tubing) and take it to the guy. drop the current oem exhuast and tell him to replicate that with the new 2" stainless pipe....not a bad idea my friend....