3" Exhaust on my '83 242t

Written 08-09-08

I built this system in May of 2006, when this 242 used to belong to my younger brother Erik (now it's my daily driver).  Since he was a rally hungry monster we needed the exhaust to be tucked up as high as we could get under the whole car.  3" downpipe, flex section, 3-bolt clamp, straight pipe, Moroso spiral flow muffler, over axle, then a huge Magnaflow 5"x8"x18" oval muffler in the back. It's so stealthy quiet, really really quiet.  It still has the rumble and deepness of 3" exhaust, but it's one of the quietest 3" setups I've ever heard. With his old 3" exhaust (little mufflers, crappy design) sitting in the back seat for more than a few minutes would make your head hurt. But with this exhaust I can talk on my cell phone from the backseat. We were both VERY happy with how it turned out, because then we could drive aggressively and not have people glaring at us for being obnoxious.

After I first built it, the exhaust rubbed a teeny bit sometimes under the transmission crossmember, and I think the tailpipe hit the bumper every now and then. But after a bit of "convincing" with a big huge hammer, everything cleared just fine.  This exhaust has been driven daily for the past 2 years and I have absolutely no complaints.  I did have to remove the "rear crash triangle" on the passenger side to be able to tuck up the exhaust so high, but I'm not too concerned about it for this car.  They are there so that if you are in a rear-end collision the gas tank won't get jammed into the rear axle and leak/explode.  It would have to be a serious crash to crumple a 240 that far, but lets just say that I'm not advising you remove them.  You can certainly make a 3" exhaust bend under the triangle and keep the safe piece of mind.

The front muffler is a Moroso Spiral Flow, which can be purchased for around 50 bucks.  The rear muffler I bought from Jegs, 642-12259, $81.99. Center inlet, offset outlet. I think that this might cut some sound down because it forces the gasses to make a gentle turn, ramming them into the walls and into the sound deadening stuff. As opposed to a center-center muffler where the gasses just go straight through without being bothered much.  All the mandrel bends were also purchased from Jegs.

I have made a few tweaks to this exhaust since I originally built it.  I hammered a nice big dent into it right where it goes under the transmission crossmember (first pic).  On paper it probably hurts flow 0.0001% but in the real world I'm just happy that it doesn't hit anymore.  Also instead of a 3 bolt flange with a gasket right behind the flex section on the downpipe, I cut that off and welded in a V-band.  Makes downpipe removal much easier, and if I ever put in a different turbo/manifold/engine, all I will have to do is build a new downpipe and I can keep the rest of the exhaust just like it is! 

I hope these pictures inspire you to build your own exhaust system, or at least educate you to choose wisely while getting a local shop to build your exhaust.  Mandrel bends are the way to go, and very few shops actually have a mandrel bending machine, so it's very easy to just buy pre-bent 180* mandrels that you can cut and use anywhere.  Crush bends are bad!  They hurt flow and reduce the inside diameter of the pipe.  Also straight through mufflers are the way to go for a turbo car that wants to make some power.  If you can roll a tennis ball through the entire exhaust, then it has been built properly! 

Here is a video of it!  5mb (right click, save as).

If you have any comments or questions, send me a quick message!

Also here are some pictures of the very first 3" exhaust system that I had built for my old blue '85 244 DL (+turbo!) back in the spring of 2004.  I bought all the parts from Summit Racing and brought them to a local performance exhaust shop, people who were very familiar with turbo cars and GOOD exhaust systems.  I brought in some pictures and said "I'd like it go to like this", pointing to the pictures then at my car.  I was even able to stand around and watch/help them build and install my exhaust.  When they built the over axle section they did a FANTASTIC job at tucking everything up, and they were able to leave the crash triangle in place and work the exhaust around and under it.  One thing that bugged me was that they made it all one continuous piece for the over axle section, so I wasn't able to remove that part of the exhaust system.  Eventually I cut the exhaust and installed a 3 bolt clamp, as you can see in the very last picture, this allowed me to remove the exhaust whenever I needed to.