rimpainter.com

Good point about state laws. Here in AZ it has to exit behind the rear axle on a "truck"; however, I don't see how Ford made the Lightning (and Cobra) with side-exit exhaust and sold them here. The emissions guys told me they don't really care where it exits as long as they can safely insert the sniffer into the pipe.

A dump pipe would never work at my 2-year emissions check. I actually have a dump on our Accord and they wouldn't let me go through until I got an extension on it.

I guess what I am saying is that a dump is out of the question for me.

How close do you guys think an exhaust tip should be to a tire? When I routed this between the trailing arm pivot point and frame it was about 3" from the tire. Seems too close to me considering what my EGT's probably are...

RR DIFF LOCK

Christian, I actually had used a Sawzall to cut my stock exhaust pipe on the '99 similar to Ric's. Except we cut it so that the tip was flush with the backside of the rear wheel well and exited sideways. Sort of like this crappy depiction I just created:



But after I smelled fumes one too many times, I took it to Mesa Muffler and had them just tuck my pipe up higher and have it exit in the same basic factory location.

It's a tough dilemma, because, IMO, anything other than that factory location is going to be subject to trail carnage or subject people to fumes.

rimpainter.com

Yeah, I think you guys are right about it getting smashed up or just looking plain dumb (with a welded on piece to protect it). Maybe I could cut a hole in the bumper side piece and have it exit there. Obviously I am looking to do something different, and that might be kind of trick (increasing my clearance in the process).