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I have been searching hi and low, but can anyone tell me how far trumpets on exhaust should come out? How far past cutout edge in bumper? How far out is top tip of trumpet, relative to bumper edge, measuring from side? Thanks!
-Ryan
That thread isn't really all that helpful as it doesn't address OP's question about fit. Good PR for Gardner, though.
Ryan, after 50+ years, you're going to see a lot of variations, so a certain amount of it is personal preference. To my mind it should be fairly snug. On my '69, the trumpets have roughly 5/16 - 3/8" clearance from the bottom of the rolled cutout collar, and they stick out about 1" beyond the edge of the collar. Looks good to me!
Hope this helps.
Last edited by BangScreech4-4-2; March 16th, 2022 at 06:32 AM.
If I remember I can get a pointer finger in between the bumper and the tip. ~1/2". I'll look at mine when I get home tonight to put a number on it.
You want to get eye level to make sure the tip is centered in the cut-out. It's not rocket science but the 2.5" DIM I show looks correct and follows the profile of the tip & bumper.
Too far in or out, looks funny.
I would imagine the Gardner system has just enough stack-up tolerance to allow for enough adjustment to dial it in.
This is too far in:
This is too far out: Below is what I would say is correct: Ill pull out the PIM tonight as I believe there is a +/- dim there.
See how the ellipsis of the tip follows the curve of the bumper. More pronounced on the driver-side pipe in this pic. This is 2.5" out from the bumper as shown above in the first pic.
Another data point....mine are the oversized 2.5" tips and I ran them out 3" as you can see in the pics. Personal preference is the key here I think....
When I bought my first 71 442 it had the factory exhaust still on it. The car was 6 years old at the time. The tips weren't exact from side to side either in height or how much they stuck out. They were factory welded onto the pipes so there wasn't any leeway there. I readjusted the rear hanger a bit and got the heights pretty even, but I believe it would have needed to be able to slip the pipe into the muffler more a bit on the driver side because it stuck out a bit further than the other. But age/heat/rust/pipe clamp crimps wasn't going to allow that to be easily done. The passenger side was right around 2 1/2" out give or take, can't recall exactly, but the driver side was out about 1/4" more than that and it looked a bit goofy to me. I thought about moving the bumper out a skosh but it seemed to be gapped pretty even on both sides so I left it alone.
No aftermarket exhaust I've ever had matched the factory 442 muffler sound, especially when the secondaries opened. It wasn't a gnarly "turbo-muffler" rumble like some want you to believe, it was a more subdued rumble when you got on it. I can totally understand why some kids like me at the time would opt for headers and louder mufflers, especially in the 70s.
Kind of a crappy photo, but here's some 68 442 literature showing a picture of the trumpet position.
The 69 promo literature looks pretty acceptable as far as how far they stick out.
You probably wouldn't want to go by the 71 factory promo literature as those tips were pushed up into the bumper cutouts so they could melt your bottom tail light lenses here (Note the 1970 mirrors and pre-production grilles):
I owned a stock 68 back in the early 80s, and I remember the trumpets sticking out just a bit... maybe 1/2 inch. Most of the earlier answers show nice looking tailpipes, but they aren't quite true to original spec.
March 13th, 2022, 07:02 PM
