Exhaust System For Durango Charger

Today on trucks, we'll help project Durango Charger exhale by bolting on a complete exhaust system before going inside the cockpit of our SUV to give the dash a little attitude as well. After that, we'll take a look back at some of the best action of the year in the truck's Y2K review.

And finally, it's a custom built front bumper and wedge combination for the wicked willies. That's all today on trucks.

Welcome to this week's show everybody. We've already taken our 99 dodge Durango and dropped it three inches all the way around. Follow that up with some fresh rubber and wheels. Then decided to give a little attitude on the exterior with a shaker hood grill as well as ground effects front and rear.

This week, we're gonna dive under the hood of this thing and see if we can get it breathing a little better and that means messing with the exhaust system.

Now, you've seen us put on cat back systems in the past, but to get the Durango charge of breathing and flowing like it should, we're gonna deal with the whole system from the front all the way to the back

Now, since the only piece we're not gonna replace is the catalytic converter. The kit we're gonna use from the converter back is Edelbrock R PM series cap back

that includes an intermediate pipe and over the axle pipe.

A high flowing stainless steel muffler, as well as all the clamps and hangers. You're gonna need to hold it in place forward of the converter. Well, that's where we're really gonna open things up. We're gonna use a set of Edelbrock tubular headers as well as a corresponding Y pipe. Now, this is where most of our horsepower increase is gonna come from.

And the best part about these headers is this little piece of paper that says they're 50 state legal. It won't void your warranty.

Now we have our Durango up on the lift, but keep in mind

you can do this project in your driveway with a pair of jack stands. First thing we had to do was disconnect the battery.

We're also gonna get this scoop out of the way so you can see what we're up to under here. Now, if you have a stock application, you will have to remove the filter box that rests right here for easier access to the headers.

Now, we're ready to start tearing the stock exhaust system apart. Now, first off is we need to take off this 02 sensor out of the stock Y pipe.

Now, be careful with it because you're gonna have to reuse this little guy.

Now, we can unbolt the Y pipes. Now, for those of you that haven't done any exhaust work, make sure that you're prepared for some surprises. These old bolts will get rusty and break and give you all the kinds of problems. Even on a system that's only a couple of years old, like ours is,

make sure you have plenty of penetrating lube

to help break those suckers loose.

Now, the space has the wire pipe out of the way we can go ahead and unbolt the stock manifold.

Now, keep in mind these things are awkward to get a good grip on. So take your time

when you're pulling them out. Also, you may have to remove your plug wires to get them free.

You think those old things were a little restricted,

just a little.

Now it's time to put in the new headers. Now, believe it or not, they just slide right into place, not something usually associated with headers. Now, they're held in place

by these header bolts. Now, a neat trick is to wrap these in teflon tape that'll keep them from backing out on you or rusting in place.

While Stacey is finishing up with the headers under the hood,

we can slide the new wire pipe into place that bolts up directly to the headers and the catalytic converter. Now, we already reinstalled the stock 02 sensor and once we have the Y pipe bolted in place, we'll be finished with the front half of the system.

Now, with the front half taken care of, we can start taking apart the rest of the stock system.

We cut it off right here behind the catalytic converter. Now, remember some of those surprises we told you about. Well, here they are. Even though these are only a couple of years old, we broke off these U bolts because they were rusty.

Also, we had to cut this pipe here to disconnect it from the muffler. And this is a good idea anyway,

because it makes it a lot easier to get this pipe out that runs over the top of the axle, especially if you're laying on your back in the driveway.

All you have to do now

is pop it out of the stock rubber mounts.

Once the factory system is completely out of the way you need to slip the intermediate pipe

on the catalytic converter outlet pipe.

After that,

you can get the muffler in place. Now, at this point,

all you wanna do is snug up the clamps so you can adjust everything later on.

Now, we're ready for the tail pipe that goes up over the top of the rear axle

and this may take you some time and a little bit of friendly persuasion, especially on a lowered vehicle because as you can see,

it gets a little tight up in here. Also, the diameter of the pipe is considerably larger than stock Now, once you have it in the muffler,

all you have to do is mount it back here using the stock rubber mounts.

Now that we have our new system hung,

we can tighten everything down. Now, you want to start at the front and tighten each clamp, making sure you have plenty of clearance over the top of your pipes and muffler as you work your way back.

Now, keep in mind this system was made for a stock Durango. So the tail pipe exits in the stock location. But if you'll remember right,

we put on this bumper cover that has outlets for dual exhaust. So

later on, we'll come in here and split this pipe,

run another pipe out this direction.

So we have dual exhaust sticking out through the cover. But right now, we need to check and make sure this thing doesn't have any leaks. Go ahead and hit it mel

once you're sure you don't have any leaks, shut it off, let it cool down,

recheck all your header bolts and you're done.

Of course, before we can check those bolts, things need to cool down. So this would be a perfect time to take a break. Stay with us. We'll be right back

later on trucks. We'll show you how to build a custom bumper for just about any vehicle out there.

But up first, we're gonna give the dash on the Durango charger a little attitude.

Welcome back to trucks, everybody now that we have our new exhaust system fully adjusted and bolted down.

We're gonna turn our attention to the area where we're gonna spend most of our time.

That's the interior.

You know, one of the hottest upgrades out there is to swap out your stock, black face gauges for white ones. The speed glow kit we got from A PC includes everything you'll need to convert the gauges and really make them pop at the same time. Here you go, man. All right, thanks.

The first thing we need to do is take the dash apart. Now, some are held in place with screws and some like the Durango here just pop right out.

The one thing is for sure,

they're all made out of plastic and they're all really easy to break. So if you're not quite sure, check out a manual

with the dash taken apart, take out the screws that hold the clear plastic lens to the gauges

and then with the key on, make a note of where all the needles are pointing

and then take this special tool that comes with the kit and carefully

pry up the needles

while Stacey is tearing the dash apart, there is one last thing we need to deal with on our Durango and that's the top because of all the work we did on the exterior of this thing.

The luggage rack is really starting to stick out like a sore thumb. So we're gonna go ahead and lose it.

Now, once you have all the needles removed,

take the new gauge face and lay it right over the top of the old gauges.

Now, with the ignition on, take your needles

and put them back on,

make sure you put them on exactly where they were before.

Now, we can slide the black trim piece back on,

followed by the clear plastic cover.

Don't get the wrong idea here just because we smooth the top doesn't mean we're gonna leave it that way. We also went to truck max and picked up one of their sport wings for the Durango charger. Now, all you have to do to mount it is pop the locator guides into the mounting holes on the wing,

then get the wing in place

and once you have it exactly where you want it,

you can tape down the guides

and pull off the wing.

Now, all you have to do is drill through the locator guides

and you've got the perfect mounting holes for a very hot looking piece.

The final thing we need to do on the gauges is mount the dimmer switch. Now, obviously you want to have it in an area where you can get to it.

So we're gonna put it down on this lower panel to where it's over here by our other light controls and mounting the switch is pretty straightforward.

All you have to do is drill a hole,

all we have left to do now is plug the harness into the gauges

and then we've got two wires to deal with from the harness. One goes to a ground,

the other goes to a power source.

Now, once all your connections are made,

just pop your dash back on

and give them a try.

Now that our dash is up to speed, this would be a great time to bring you up to speed on the entire build up of project Durango Charger. Now it rolled into the truck shop a few months ago as a bone stock SUV,

but once it fell into our hands, well, there's no way we could just leave it stock. So, of course, the first thing we did was work on the stance by dropping it three inches all the way around

and putting on some cool wheels and tires.

After that, we followed it up with hood

grill,

ground effects package

and all that brings us to the present with our 99 Durango. Thanks to the complete exhaust system that should give us an extra 20 horse. We think we built a vehicle that's the best of both worlds. Plenty of attitude as well as solid performance. Stay with us. Trucks will be right back

up next. We'll take a look back at some of the best action this year that our cameras caught at truck events all over the country.

Thanks for staying with us, everybody. You know, this past year, we basically crisscrossed the entire United States to bring you some of the hottest truck events out there and we had such a great time hunting these stories down for you. We thought it'd be really cool if we showed you the best of what our cameras caught at these events. So what we have coming up next is what we call the trucks. Y2K Review.

This is excellent, excellent racing. If you've never been, you have to come out to a core race. Core foot's on the greatest races out here. The most exciting races you'll ever see. You know,

this aspect of racing I feel has all different kinds of realm of racing. You've got drag racing, which is the starting line right off the start. It's a drag race to the first corner. You get to the first corner, then you're sideways just like sprint car racing with a truck right next to you. Then after that first corner, of course, the car's gonna throw in some jumps and bumps. So that's always upsetting the trucks and the chassis and the other vehicles. So there's always excitement no matter where you're looking at on the track.

Jamborees are excellent

for everybody.

I mean, they got

the little kids up to grandpa like me. You know, everybody comes and everybody has a good time.

They watch crazy people like me out there doing wheelies and watch the monster trucks.

25 years went into this, you know, it'd go 100 and 44 ft 10 inches. That's gotta say something right now.

Leave that hard

and carry the wheels as far as it did.

It was, it was a rush. I mean, I've never had that feeling before. I've had this truck for seven years

and it has never done what it's done today. Especially in the,

in the temperature. I thought for sure. I was gonna run a lot slower

than I do. 1117.

And that need to be a good pass

in the tent.

I do it for myself first. It's, you know, my own self-gratification,

you know, fill my truck, go as fast as it can

and everybody else is a fringe benefit of my fun.

Hey,

wait a minute.

That's not a truck.

Ok, man, I've seen some crazy things out here

but a

chavette. What posses

you, man.

Why not?

What else?

There's nothing else like it.

Well, no one's gonna forget. That's for sure. What kind of chess do you have here?

It's just a Chevy love truck.

All factory four cylinder.

You just gotta break the norm.

You're not afraid to get air with it either. Oh, no, no, no. It was built to come out here and be.

Somebody asked me if this was a lot like driving a barn door and I said, no, not at all. It's like driving the whole barn.

I wouldn't say you'd be considered your average normal guy getting in a school bus with a jet motor. Uh,

what kind of a person really does this,

what kind of a person jumps out of a good airplane?

Just for fun. Right.

All depends on what winds your clock. I mean, look at bungee jumping. You want to tie a rubber band around your waist and jump off a cliff. I don't

talk to us a little bit about the teamwork and how it took both of you to get this done.

Uh, you can't do anything out here without a spotter and you can't do too much without a good machine. So, uh,

I had both

eventually. If the, if the sport keeps growing, you're gonna have to see some division,

you're gonna have to put a limit on the tire side of something to

have some division. And then you also have to look at it if this is the world championships and everybody should be able to compete in whatever they want to compete in.

I look at it. It's a different, uh,

plateau. It's, it's bringing the whole sport to a different level.

I, I, maybe down the road they'll, they'll separate the two into two different classes.

If everything goes right,

it's,

it puts you in the seat so hard. You can't

really, you're kind of the car, it's up to the car to do whatever it's gonna do because you have no control.

The only control you have is

left. Now, what does it feel like when that front end comes apart.

Uh, your first instinct is to lift, but if you lift, you're gonna lose,

going straight and staying there

as the sun sets on an awesome season of truck events. We'd like to say thanks for all the action.

We look forward to more of the same next year.

Oh, yeah, the door flies over

just can't get enough of trucks. Check us out online at trucks, tv.com.

Welcome back to the shop. Now it's obvious that the wicked Willies is almost finished. Matter of fact, one of the last things that we need to do before we take it out is put on a new front bumper and winch. Now, the problem is a lot of times a good winch bumper is not even available for an older vehicle. So, what are you gonna do?

Well, it's up to you to make something fit. We're gonna show you how to do that.

Fortunately, one thing you do have options on is a winch and we're gonna go with one of the best in the business. Super winch. This electric 9000 s has 100 ft of cable. It's put in motion with a two horsepower motor and that's controlled with a remote switch that has power in

and out

for the bumper. We went to a swap meet and picked up this late model Chevy S 10 bumper for 25 bucks. Now, the reason that's gonna be so good for us

is it's got the same length and radius of our original Willie's bumper.

Now, you will need to make some frame extensions for it and these need to be strong.

So we're using quarter inch C channel steel

and they'll bolt right up to the original frame holes.

Now with the bumper in place,

it's time for some measurements.

Now, it looks like we're gonna have to move this bumper back about nine inches to get it to tuck really nice against the truck. Of course, when we do that,

we're gonna have to cut off about 3.5 inches here or this bumper will hit the tires when we push it back.

We also need to come in, take a measurement here because we need to make a block so we can bolt the bumper to the extension.

We're going to use a plasma cutter here to cut the extensions and the bumper, but a cut off wheel or a Sawzall

will work just as well.

Now, obviously, we're gonna have to have our bumper as well as some of the trim pieces on the Willie's re crown. And for that, we're gonna go to advanced plating in Nashville, Tennessee

thing. That's really neat about those guys is all you have to do is ship them, your old part.

They work their magic and ship them right back to you

and with the bumper and extensions cut down to where they need to be.

Here's what we did about those spacers took a thick piece of square tubing,

cut it down to where it needed to be

and then just welded it back together.

Now, all we have to do is drill the mounting holes in the spacers and the extensions before bolting everything together.

Well, now you can see how nicely all this stuff fits together. And when we take this bumper off and have it re chromed,

we're also gonna paint these parts so they don't rust on us.

And hopefully this gives you an idea on how to custom mount a bumper to almost any kind of vehicle without breaking the bank.

Stay with us. Truck gears up next

and now truck gear, parts, tools and equipment for pickups and sport utilities,

cart, the kids around town in your truck or SUV, and it won't be long until you have a major mess on your hands. A Dustbuster from Black and Decker can really help clean things up for you though.

It comes with special attachments for upholstery as well as tight spots. But the best part is you don't need batteries because it also comes with the charging base. Now, we all know that you can't keep messes from happening, but you can keep them from lasting for under 50 bucks with a Dustbuster

for years. One of the neatest upgrades that you could do to a vehicle was putting on a custom steering wheel. Well, that all changed when airbag wheels came out.

Now, granted an airbag wheel is a lot more safe. But man, these things are ugly

and Grant decided to do something about it. So they came out with the styling ring made specifically for airbag wheels. Now you can get it in wood grain like ours is or carbon fiber and installation is as easy as pulling off the tape

and snapping it in place. Now you're gonna have the safety of an airbag, but for about 60 bucks,

you can get a little bit of pop to it too. From Grant, it's gonna do it for truck gear. Here's a look at next week's show.

We're gonna turn our stock Chevy pickup truck into a sinister Silverado by bolting on a six inch lift kit as well as some new wheels and rubber.

After that, we'll take a look at a classic ride from Dodge, the 79 Little Red Express. Then it's time to roll wicked Willies back into the shop for a complete cooling system upgrade.

That's all next week on trucks.

Well, that's gonna do it for this week's show. We appreciate you hanging out with us. Yeah, we got more trucks to roll at you next week. You ready to go home, man.

Trucks is an RT M production.