Exhaust routing in Vixen V-8 Conversions

[Gilgo]

As mentioned in my previous post, I am restoring my Vixen 2500, and plan to convert to a Ford 302 V-8 and 5 speed.

The biggest negative in my 13 year driving experience of this delightful car was the frequent bottoming of the undermounted exhaust system. Has anyone out there been successful in routing the exhaust system through the chassis, to increase ground clearance? I would love to hear your experiences, with pix, if possible.

Also, your thoughts on the conversion process and/or the resulting improvements or drawbacks be appreciated.

Best, Gil

[anonymous-user]

There's a lot of pipework...even if you go for undersize manifolds and secondary's.

It's on an M but I think its representative of the problem you could face.

[Gilgo]

Wow! Incredible workmanship!

Is that your 5400M? Did you do the work, or farm it out? What is your ground clearance with that set up?
Do you feel the system shown resulted in a performance loss?
We will not be racing this car, so a slight performance sacrifice would be acceptable.

Thank much for sharing.

Best, Gil

[ATE399J]

You asked about drawbacks of converting to V8. Although I have no doubt that a V8 conversion would result in a faster, more reliable and easier to maintain car you would be sacrificing originality. Swapping to V8 seems to be a growing trend and I suspect that there are very few 2500's left as so many seem to have gone down this route.
As I am sure you are aware if you go the V8 route replacing the diff and up rating the brakes would be advisable to cope with the additional power and torque.
If it was an Aston or a Jag of the same era I doubt you would be considering installing an LS unit or other V8. I do appreciate that that's not quite a fair comparison but the car is a period piece and now quite rare.
Having said all of that it is your car and I hope you get loads of pleasure from it whatever you decide to do.

Phil.

Edited by ATE399J on Monday 10th October 20:42

[Andrew Gray]

This system works very well on my V6 Tuscan now V8 i have very little issue with clearance having no rear box certainly helps its a 2inch system and and the manifold is in two sections so easy removal for maintenance







I can post a picture when she goes back on

Andrew

[anonymous-user]

On the Tuscan chassis the hoop over the bellhousing is much higher to give clearance. The 2500 is Vixen so the hoop is lower - will it all fit ?

[anonymous-user]

Gilgo said:

Wow! Incredible workmanship!

Is that your 5400M? Did you do the work, or farm it out? What is your ground clearance with that set up?
Do you feel the system shown resulted in a performance loss?
We will not be racing this car, so a slight performance sacrifice would be acceptable.

Thank much for sharing.

Best, Gil

Hi Gil, it is the 5400m.

It's a road car with the exhaust system intended to liberate all the power rather than constrain. It's a road car that will sit at normal ride height, not dropped on low profile tyres.

I would love to say it was all my own work, but I just paid the bill...

[catfishdb]

Maybe something like this?

A set of Magnaflow mufflers sideways to them up and out of the way. Now the lowest bit is my oil pan.




Arthur

[catfishdb]

To keep the motor low and not alter the frame the headers were routed a bit more in the TVR convention.

Arthur