Good exhaust work in Seattle area?

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slantsixdan

slantsixdan

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Greetings from the northern tip of the lower peninsula of Michigan. The day after tomorrow, I'm hopping in my '73 Dart and heading to Seattle. I am optimistically planning on 3 long driving days to cover the ~2300 miles.

Sooner than later, the car's going to want pipe(s) and a muffler. Anyone got a recommendation for who does nice pipework in the Seattle area?

(I'd better make it there; the day after tomorrow is my 10th anniversary. Other half's already in Seattle by plane; we'll celebrate once I get there. So far pretrip: Remflex manifold gasket, Permaseal head gasket, new exhaust manifold with heat riser that doesn't spin 360° because this one has an actual plate in it, aluminum intake, Dutra oil pump, valve stem seals, ESPO leaf springs, new vibration damper, TSB trans damper, flywheel-type A/C clutch, badly-needed new Evans engine wiring harness, new heater valve, and if I get time, new radio...otherwise it's gonna be a long AM-only drive once I sing myself hoarse.)
 
slantsixdan said:
Greetings from the northern tip of the lower peninsula of Michigan. The day after tomorrow, I'm hopping in my '73 Dart and heading to Seattle. I am optimistically planning on 3 long driving days to cover the ~2300 miles.

Sooner than later, the car's going to want pipe(s) and a muffler. Anyone got a recommendation for who does nice pipework in the Seattle area?

(I'd better make it there; the day after tomorrow is my 10th anniversary. Other half's already in Seattle by plane; we'll celebrate once I get there. So far pretrip: Remflex manifold gasket, Permaseal head gasket, new exhaust manifold with heat riser that doesn't spin 360° because this one has an actual plate in it, aluminum intake, Dutra oil pump, valve stem seals, ESPO leaf springs, new vibration damper, TSB trans damper, flywheel-type A/C clutch, badly-needed new Evans engine wiring harness, new heater valve, and if I get time, new radio...otherwise it's gonna be a long AM-only drive once I sing myself hoarse.)
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I had the pipes on my newport done at dan fast, been very happy with it for the last few years. Might ask JR, he might know a better place though.... we should have an fabo gathering if you have time when you are in area.
 
res1vw21 said:
I had the pipes on my newport done at dan fast, been very happy with it for the last few years. Might ask JR, he might know a better place though.... we should have an fabo gathering if you have time when you are in area.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll check it out. Gathering = good idea! I have a series of SAE meetings to attend (and one of them to chair) from the 13th to the 16th but let's see about sometime after that.
 
Hey Dan, if you want to meet up, Rod Run to the End of the World is this weekend in Long Beach, we have a house down there, free, woot. JR can come too if he wants. You too Russ
 
Wondered what you've been up to the last few days. Haven't seen you around here. Hope you had a good trip and are having fun out west. Fill us in on the fun. toolmanmike
 
Pulled into the driveway in Seattle two Sunday afternoons ago, some 2400 miles after starting out in Michigan on the previous Thursday.

Here are some pics from the road trip. These first two show original mileage (which is why I took them), and were taken in situ on Interstate 94. Or was it I-90? One of the two. Sorry for the blurry images; I did the best I could without taking my eyes off the road:

Odo_1.jpg


Odo_2.jpg


Two things to note about these pics:

1. They depict the original instrument cluster of a 1973 car built for the US market. So the odometer reads in miles, not kilometres.

2. They are photos of the odometer. Anything else that may or may not be depicted in either or both photos is purely by-the-by. :lol:

And Saturday I met this guy at a Conoco station somewhere in Montana:

OMG_Beards.jpg


We had a good conversation about beards. I'm not used to not having the longest beard in whatever room I'm in.

Anyhow, I'm here. The car did just fine. Used a scant pint of oil. Didn't ping. Highest recorded mileage was just shy of 21 mpg (cruising on flat highways at 70-75 mph). Lowest was in the neighborhood of 15: long, hard climbs up mountains, running on ethanol-contaminated (oops, we're supposed to say "enhanced" now :roll:) gasoline, going from high altitude to higher altitude, and sustained cruising at over 80 mph up in the mountains. Engines lose about 5% of their output for every 1000 feet above sea level, just because of the reduced air density at higher altitude. Because this is a carbureted car without automatic barometric compensation or feedback control of the fuel/air mixture, we lose additional power and efficiency: the mixture goes rich as the same amount of gasoline is mixed with the same amount of less-dense air which contains less oxygen. I wish Montana was better about providing elevation markers on the highway; the one and only sign I saw was 6400 feet at the Continental Divide. I don't know if any of the other climbs took me higher than that, but that's 32% efficiency loss due to reduced air density, so the lower mileage figure is not unexpected. The car could do with a new exhaust system; the one on it is small and restrictive.

My new-to-me (i.e., used) first-generation iPhone served admirably as an iPod, though I had to resort to using the earbuds because I had no cable to connect to the car's specially-modified original radio, which in any event is not yet wired up quite correctly at the speaker end, so the sound is distorted. I'll have to fix that. I did get to play the standard assortment of highway games, such as honking the horn when its two tones (the G above middle C and the D above that) were in tune with the chords in The Guess Who's "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature", for example, and checking the odometer accuracy over 100 miles (off by 3.4%; a speedo drive pinion with 1 more tooth should fix it).
 
Welcome to the Great Northwest! I am going to one of your recommendations today...Old Car Parts Northwest.
 
Hey Dan, The only place I can think of is Action Muffler in Renton across from the airport but the guy is kind of creepy and weird and not always open. So you might want to look into the place that Ross told you about.

See you Saturday! :cheers:
 
I was completely overwhelmed! Too much to see in one day. I set some front suspension items to the side. Going to get a slant 6 dist. for your HEI conversion. I also spied a box with some goodies already pulled for you. Ray is a cool guy with a warehouse full of great car parts.
 
The guy I use is in Everett. He is priced fairly and he does very excellent work. He's done all the exhaust bending and welding on my Dart.

It's called "Pro Muffler and Brakes"


How'd the trip go? I defiantly love the area AROUND Seattle, the city itself not too much..
 
Sorry to have missed you cannonballing through our fine state. You are right about both altitude, both the changing and thin air aspects, and ethanol hurting gas mileage and performance around here. I was debating on a boating sight weather a Ford 4x4 with the 4.6 is adequate for towing. The owner of a said Ford thought his was great, but anybody I know around Western MT with one thinks they can hardly get out of their own way, let alone with 4000 pounds of trailer. The guy was from the great state of Maryland and probably has never been east of the Mississippi. I suppose near sea level and 500 foot passes does wonders for the power of a small Ford V8! Plus if you are not doing 70+ mph around here you will be about blown off the road.

Anyway, hope you have a nice trip. We love Washington as well and make a trip or two to Seattle every year.
 
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