So, as it turns out, I'm not going to have enough money to complete my turbo conversion until at least February. (They really need to figure out a way to pirate tuition the way you can textbooks. Err, I mean... did I say that?)

In the mean time, my stock muffler and connecting pipe were needed for another car, so Jeff welded me up an exhaust system from some spare bits and pieces. We decided to have it exit out the side, just before the rear wheel. The motivation? Laziness. Neither one of us wanted to deal with having it go over the rear end. Plus, it uses less pipe this way.



Excuse the rust.



The system consists of a stock (12A, with slotted holes to fit a 13B) exhaust manifold, two Rotary Engineering glasspacks (one long, one medium, neither in particularly good shape), and an old set of resonated tips Jeff had. Jeff took a pic of the complete system before it was installed. Hopefully he'll post it later.

As for the sound, it's actually pretty mild (for the driver, at least; I haven't ridden in the passenger seat yet). It's quieter than the old setup, which consisted of the same manifold and a stock muffler and nothing but pipe in between. It was loud and sounded retarded. (Bear in mind, this was on a ported 13B. I remember it being a good deal less annoying when I had the more mildly ported 12A.) This new system is deep and mellow until you step on it, at which point it makes a funky whooshing sound, possibly caused by the weird tips. I also seem to have picked up a few ponies. I'll take some vids if it ever stops raining.

Also, fog lights.



I sure am proud to be driving a Mazd.



My headlights are sad. I foresee an H4 conversion in my future. (Those are the high beams, by the way.)

Next on the list: motor mounts. Stay tuned.

(Yes, I am quite fond of my parentheses.)

 

You know something? It would be easy to go over the rear end using the old pipe from the red car. All the bends are in the right places. It depends mainly on what you want. If side exhaust is good enough, it'll stay as is.

 

Nah, it's fine. It's kind of a cool novelty, and I'm happy with how it sounds. The only problem comes when the passenger has to bathe in exhaust when getting in or out while the car's running.

By the way, you'll be pleased to know that ground clearance is not an issue. The old system hung considerably lower if you include the dumb hangars that would scrape on tall speed bumps.

 

I wonder why no one has commented on this. You don't see too many side-exit exhausts for rotaries.

You're right. It is a novelty and it should stay as is. It works just fine other than the small amount of exhaust you're exposed to, getting in and out, which honestly wasn't all that bad.

Do you think I should chop off the hangers from the connecting pipe? From what I can remember, the rubber donut things hung sorta lowish and had some significant oil soaked into them rendering them basically useless. Then after I replaced the system with that header system early last year, I forgot to remove one of the stretched donuts so it hung from the bottom of the car until the NO (next owner) finally removed it while changing out the tranny bushings. Heh.

 

I didn't know that anyone has ever met you in person Jeff! You're like Wolfman Jack. All the way up there in WA by yourself, posting endless rotary knowledge from your secret bat cave. Looks good guys. Not really my preference, but you sure did a nice job making it. Are those tips that I spy the remains of a Pacesetter muffler?

Jamie

 

They are Monza or Ansa tips that were on a friend's REPU in '91. They survived a few years of use and I thought I'd install them on my truck last year. I didn't like the change in sound they introduced so they sat another year until last week. I think they're doing well in their new home.

And I do like unlicensed radio. The transmitter's only like 1mw though.

 

My '73 240Z had that same resonator on it. Nothing but header, glass pack, then to the rear for the resonator. Sounded freaking awesome!

Side exhaust is pretty cool. Not something I'd do myself, but at least it doesn't **** off my common sense gland the way a lot of "unusual" ideas do.


.

 

If you want to. I'd at least bend them upward so they aren't hanging so low. You could actually see them just walking toward the car from the driver's side. Maybe they'll be kept in place if they actually have some weight on them. As you know they weren't attached to anything in my car.

 

cool set-up i really like it, i've always liked the looks of side exhaust tho, but i think (if possible) i'd try to have it go towards behind the rear wheel just because passengers that aren't used to getting out of my car usually reach back there to pull themselves out haha, the only problem is getting them glasspacks in that limited space ...also have you thought about T'ing it off to the other side to make it double exhaust? i think it'd look pretty cool

 

Going behind the wheel would have defeated the point because we would have had to go over the axle. We certainly could have done a dual-exit system, but that would have been much heavier and would have taken much more pipe and effort. (remember, the fuel lines are on the other side, which would have meant making a heat shield). Besides, then both the passenger and the driver get suffocated when getting in or out.

Yeah, we barely had enough room for both glasspacks. I didn't want to go too close to the rear tire because I thought the heat from the exhaust might cause problems. That doesn't seem to have been an issue.

Here's a vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQheBFzopKc