If you've already checked out our coverage of the 2008 Grand National Roadster Show, you've seen Steve Young's outstanding flamed '32 Tudor. Steve teamed up with Tommy Otis, in addition to Rick Cresse at Tri-C Engineering in Valencia, California, to build this show-stopping sedan. The induction system on the '58 392 Hemi includes an Edelbrock ram log manifold plus six Strombergs plumbed with lines and banjo fittings from Blundell Speed & Machine. But it's the exhaust system we're interested in right now.
Since Steve's Deuce pays tribute to the drag racers of the early 1960s, everybody involved agreed that it needed open headers. Since it is also intended for cruising on the street, Steve needed to create some way to quickly switch to a closed exhaust system to keep it legal.
There are a few ways the guys could've accomplished the job. When Editor Kevin replaced the pipes on his '32 roadster (Jan. '07 issue), he installed an electronic cutout system from Doug's Headers. For this project, they kept things a little more fundamental. Instead of capping the full exhaust, they will cap the straight pipes using bolt-on copper plates to block the ports, forcing the gases through the mufflers. The process of adding or removing the plate is more effort than hitting the toggle switch in Kevin's roadster, but the overall design is simpler, as you can see in the following photos. And whether you prefer the roar of open headers or the guttural purr through the mufflers and tailpipes, the end results are impressive.
This fabricated manifold and the one on the other side were built by Rick Cresse at Tri-C, and are key components of Steve's "convertible" exhaust system. The manifolds bolt to the Hemi using the stock cylinder head fastener holes. To run the system through the mufflers, a copper plate covers the ports, forcing the gases through the 3-inch primary tube welded in place at the bottom of the manifold. |  | 
For cruising around on public streets, the headers are capped at the manifold with a removable 0.065-inch copper plate that bolts between the manifold and the header flange, and it also acts as a gasket. |
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A pair of stainless steel header flanges was built for the system by Specialty Products Design (SPD) to mount the header pipes to the custom manifold. | 
The headers are 2-1/4-inch-diameter stainless steel tubing, built by Rick from straight pipe and mandrel bends from SPD. The company offers U-bends, J-bends, zoomies, 90-degree, 45-degree, and other popular bends in diameters up to 5 inches, and in stainless and mild steel in various wall thicknesses. |
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With the welded pipes and flanges bolted in place, Rick laid the ends on a length of square tubing and clamped them to a piece of angle bar to hold them even, before welding 1x2-inch stainless steel tabs between each pipe to support them. The tabs are easy to see from underneath but hardly noticeable from above. All four pipes and the flange are now easily removable as a single piece. | |