fixed creaking sound by wrecking exhaust - now need a new one

[jasonmrenda]

well as some of you may recall my 67 dart had a "creaking" sound anytime i hit a bump. well turned out part of the issue was a loose caliper on the drivers wheel.

well i was still getting a weird creaking/grinding sound from the drivers side when i hit a bump and it freaked me out. i didnt want to drive the car and even thought about selling/trading it. i had put in all new suspension bits, had the car aligned twice, welded in the torsion bar area, and had the mechanic check it out. so at this point my fear was a cracked frame rail or something that would be a LOT of cash that i didn't want, nor could affod, to put into it.

so last sun it was a beautiful day and i decided to take the dart to possibly trade it for an old ford or chevy truck. i know i know.

anyway i hit a huge pothole and literally ripped my drivers side exhaust clean off from the cherry bomb back. well i just tossed it into the trunk and started off.

FUNNIEST THING HAPPENED! i hit a bump and the noise was gone!!! i had hoped that the issue was the exhaust hitting the frame when i hit bumps. i guess that was the case as now the car fells MUCH better and i actually want to drive it again.

but now i need to build a real exhaust. i cant spend a ton of cash. i heard decent things about the Thrush? mufflers. i have cherry bombs on there now and they are a bit too loud and they cause fitment issues because of the length. So i am looking for a set of mildy loud, short, offset mufflers that areb't super expensive.

i have a 76 318 with edelebrock intake and carb, crappy summit headers.

any ideas/recommendations?

 

[SirDan]

Summit makes some cheap dual exhaust kits. Thrush mufflers are nice and cheap. The thrush welded is the same inside design as the flowmaster 40 series. The thrush turbo is pretty quiet like any other turbo muffler. They also make a glasspack which is nice and loud. If you go with the thrush welded id highly recommend putting an H or X pipe in it really makes those mufflers sound better. the summit kit doesent have any crossover pipe but i wouldent think it would be to hard to put at least an H pipe in.

 

[jasonmrenda]

thanks Dan - are those summit kits fairly straight to bolt -in or do you assume that they are "just the basics" and a lot of fab will need to be done? I ask because if i am just paying for the mufflers and the rest will need to be fabbed, i may just buy the pieces seperately. if the kit gets me 90% of the way there, i'd go that route and save some time/headache.

 

[SirDan]

Well to be honest ive never used one on a Abody (yet). But my dads bought the summit kit for other vehicles and definatly got you about 90% there. If you plan on running an X pipe though you might want to just buy it peice by peice. I know theres some people on here running the summit kit, im sure someone can tell you more about how it fits in an A body.