2'' OR bIGGER PIPES

I guess that depends on the combo your running how quiet you want it to be ect. Truthfully any engine making more than a souped up rascal scooter would benifit from at least 2 1/4 inch pipe. And with the wide offering of mufflers keep it quiet. The hot set up in the day was to run hemi style sears muzzler mufflers,quiet and flowed well,and were 2 1/2 od.

2" pipes are not all that wide, IMO.

The stock pipes on my 94 Saturn were 1-7/8". When I replaced them I went with 2-1/4" and it did make a difference. My Nova is probably going to get 2-1/2 to 3", if I ever get around to putting a supercharger on it.

As already mentioned, there's such a variety of mufflers available to make it as quiet or as loud as you want.

I would consider 2" the minimum size for any sort of small cube V8, and 2.25" or 2.5" the minimum for a mid or large cube V8, or a high performance small cube V8. And for a high performance, large cube V8, 3" should really be considered.

My mildy built 350ci had 2" pipes when I bought it. I upgraded to 2.5" when I redid the exhaust system a couple years ago, and was rewarded with a cooler, smoother running engine with better performance. It became noticeably louder too, but this was not a problem for me at all.

I've always run a minimum of 2.5" exhaust on my car. It originally had the stock 307 in it with some headers, a 4 barrell carb, aluminum intake, and with the 2.5" exhaust it sounded nice. Not too loud, but loud enough to know its a V8.

Swapped that motor out to a 383 stroker years later, ran the same exhaust through that, ran great, sounded good, etc. A year later I decided to make it louder, went with 3" pipes with Flowmasters and turndowns before the rear axle. Now that is a loud exhaust system there! Again, runs good, performs well, sounds good to me.

Seems like a 2" pipe would choke off any V8 with any sort of power, but I'm not an exhaust flow expert either. Minimum I've seen on most cars on the street is 2 1/4".

I vote 2.5" minimum for a small block.

Mandrel bent pipes are just as important to size too. I run 2.5" with a mild BB about 435 hp. I would think 2.25" or 2.5" mandrel bent, would be great behind a SB on the street and free up some horse power too. If you're not running headers, I wouldn't go over 2".

4" dual pipes shooting strait out of the hood!

The key to this question is the muffler cfm and db rating. You can have a 10" pipe but if the muffler cfm is bad the exhaust back pressure is to high. Try and find the muffler with best flow rate and lowest db level then figure out the pipe diameter. RICK