Total Removal of pipes??

[OrecaGTS-R/T]

My friend owns a Commodore (Australian car) and to make it louder, he wants to cut the exhaust off just behind the front wheel arches and make the pipes exit the side of the car, inbetween the front wheel and the car door. Kind of like the drag cars. He said this would make the car a lot louder but to me it sounds like he is just ruining the exhaust system and probably making the car illegal aswell. Would this work well on a Viper seeing as the pipes already exit the side of the car. If you just let them out earlier and didn't have a muffler (much alike the Oreca GTS/RT's) would this make the noise louder and/or illegal?

 

[Jason-Middle Tennessee]

My guess is that it would be very loud and ILLEGAL.

 

[Vreracing]

He also might need some special shoes. Our race cars do not have any exhaust. I thought I smelled something burning while practicing and discovered it was the bottom of my shoe.

There used to be some talk that if you run with straight headers that when the engine is turned off some of the cool air may get sucked in and warp the valves. We've never had this problem. I must admit I've been through a few engines. When you run a stock Chevy 350 up to 400 plus horsepower and run it over 7000 rpm don't expect it to last a long time.