Nelson's Suzuki Samurai

[gargantula99]

Some of you may know this, but I have a second car being stored at my brothers house in Kentucky. It's a 1988 Suzuki Samurai. Now I have an issue where the exhaust system has rotted off. See pics below:




Now, do I just get a stock, off the shelf exhaust at meineke? Or do I go with enlarged header and whole new performance exhaust that says there's a 15% increase in power for $700?

My nephew needs to use it for a little while and obviously, it needs a muffler.

Thoughts?

[CrackerTeg]

Stock, off the shelf. Unless you plan on using that thing to crawl around in mud up to its doors (which, by the condition of the undercarriage someone already has been) and have the power to back it up,  aftermarket is wholly unnecessary. I'm assuming its completely stock? BTW, most, if not all, aftermarket parts claim 15% increase when the reality is, you get about 5% if you're lucky.

Besides, why burn $700 on a beat down Samurai when you have a sweet AV6 sedan that needs its suspension replaced with a set of Teins that haven't been rebuilt yet?

[accordguy04]

I was gonna say make it loud... but I like Zs arguement.

[B.R.03EX]

That exhaust looks absolutely terrible! If it were me, I would go with the cheapest option unless I planned on keeping it for a long time.

[ikethegreat]

If the car is a beater (as it appears), go with the cheap option.  Your nephew will probably run the car into the ground anyway. 

[gargantula99]

The car was my fathers and handed down to me in 1999 as my high school grad gift. It's been in the family for 23 out of the 25 years it's existed.

[exelr8]

If it were my nephew needing a car and was going to use it, I'd say tell him to get a job and buy what he can afford. Tough life lesson.

[gargantula99]

It's a simple exhaust question Country.  If you want more of a full story, he's married and 25 years old.  He's moving from FL to Kentucky and needs a car for 2 months while his wife finishes college In Florida.  He'll get in Infiniti M45 then.  Ultimately the way I see it, it's my car and even though my brother's been using it on his farm, just to keep the fluids moving around, it's not anybody's fault that the exhuast is rotted to hell.  I replaced it about 10 years ago when it was still my daily driver.  Just being that it's an older vehicle, parts are getting harder and harder to find. 

So do I go with the $700 Calmini exhaust as pictured here in this link.

http://www.calmini.com/detail.php?b=2&m=40&t=4&p=853&n=

Or

http://www.petroworks.com/doug-thorley-1-3-header/

and just throw a stock cat and exhaust on there and risk it rotting away in two years all over again?

[thisaznboi88]

straight pipe and call it a day 

[gargantula99]

Ha! Thanks! Still need me some street legality.

[Jeff Likes Bagels]

You may want to just rip the entire exhaust out and start from scratch. Actually, I think it would be more important to repair all of the other rust on the underbody; the exhaust is pretty easy to replace compared to the rest of your car.

Granted if you have the time of course.

[exelr8]

That makes a little more sense, I thought it was like a nephew was using it as a first car(16 years old). What us the price difference between stock and aftermarket?

[cna]

I would go after market and turn it into a project car them little things are troopers

[gargantula99]

Yeah. Don't have the money to do what I want to the undercarriage. Which is to spray it with the stuff they use on pickup truck bed liners. The rhino stuff.  I'm thinking of just getting the headers and have a local shop install a 1.75" pipe with a stock cat and muffler.  The reality is that it's a stock 66 hp engine, which is probably down to 60 hp now after 25 years.  Putting in the headers alone should bring it back up to stock.

[exelr8]

Off topic, but you started I. You can get the do it yourself truck bed liner stuff for relatively cheap. IIRC, I paid 9 bucks for one spray can of it which did 3 coats on my atv racks and I still have plenty left.