This photo is from Sacramento SVO's website:

Hello,

For those of you wanting to get a 3" DP, you might want to consider this mandrel bent DP at a great price!

At the tip of a couple other XR owners, I went ahead and bought a 3" mandrel bent DP which was originally made for the 84 SVO.  Got the downpipe through Sacramento Mustang.  Below is their on-line catalog for the SVO.  Go to the "Exhaust" section and look for
part # SVO-7200 for an 84 SVO. 

http://www.sacramento-mustang.com/svo/svo_key.html

The price listed is $99, but I got the $10 "Web Coupon" special and got it for $89.  Shipping was $12.17, which brought my grand total to $101.17. 

The 3" DP is very nice - HIGH QUALITY!  Had it installed on Saturday and it fit right in.  It was a perfect fit on my 87 XR.  I know that earlier XR's had tighter clearances around the transmission tunnel, so I can't say for certainty how it would fit an early XR.  Seems like it would work fine and would only require a slight tweak - if any.  Again, it fit my 87 with NO tweaks.  It just bolted up and was welded to my existing 3" pipe. 

Best of all, I was surprised at how much of a difference it made in the way the car drives.  I didn't expect much since I already had a 3" DP (compression bent), 3" CAT, 3" into
dual 2.5" exhaust. 

Thought that I might not even notice a difference.  Glad that I was wrong!  Engine definitely pulls stronger.  I didn't run any G-Tech tests since I wasn't even expecting a noticeable difference in performance.  Anyway, regardless of exact HP numbers, the engine definitely is happier with
the mandrel bent DP!  Nice to be surprised with more improvement than expected (this doesn't happen very often)!

FYI...  I measured the circumference of my old compression bent 3" DP at the bends.  The circumference was about 0.9 inches less...which equates to approximately a 0.3 inch
reduction in diameter.  This may not sound like much on a 3" dia pipe, but the shape of the pipe is also a factor.  At the compression bends, the pipe gets deformed and the cross
section becomes sort of oval shaped (out of round).  Obviously, all this adds up to some amount of flow restriction.  On my car, it was enough to be noticeable going from compression bent
to mandrel bent.  Note: This pipe requires welding.  It would be the perfect starter pipe for a custom bent 3" exhaust!

Thought some of you might be interested in this very nice
3" mandrel DP! 

Edward Key
87 XR
86 XR parts car
http://home.ccci.org/Key_Information (WEB PAGE)
(note that there is an underscore between Key_Information in the above link if you must type it in)
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This from Paul Bruce:

Richard,
I went on ahead and purchased the 3 inch downpipe from Sacramento Mustang
for my 85 model XR4Ti.  The installer had no problems whatsover with it
fitting.  The pipe looks very nice and was a steal at $105 which included 3
day UPS.  The car runs better now and has a deeper tone.  Feel free to use
my comments pertaining to this vendor. I wish they catered to XR people
rather than Mustang. They were prompt in shipping the piece and had a fair
price. 

Thanks, Paul Bruce
 
 

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