Exhaust Cut Out Dates

[Steven Meixner]

When do you think FACTORY cut outs were phased out. They were common in the teens, but ended when.

[Pfeil]

"Factory" cut out option 1970 Pontiac GTO.

 

1970 Pontiac GTO Humbler - Commercial - LONG VERSION!!!!! - YouTube

[Fossil]

Deleted. Sorry I didn't catch the word factory. 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Fossil (see edit history)

[chistech]

My brother just installed a pair on his 67’ cutlass street/strip car.

[Steven Meixner]

I agree with Ben P that no cars had them past the 30s. I should have excluded muscle cars in my original post.

[edinmass]

The were still standard equipment in 1936.

[Ivan Saxton]

Two of my cars have original cutouts of different design, a 1923 Rochester Duesenberg engined Roamer,  and a 1923 Series Six Mercer, which has a six cylinder pushrod OHV six cylinder Rochester Trego engine.   There is none on either Auburn 8 I have, and none on any Stutz.  (When I was gathering parts to rebuild a detacheable head 4 cylinder Stutz I had seven engines but no cutout.   I presume most of the cars fragmented the cast aluminium transaxle housing when two gears were engaged simultaneously.  I was able to buy a new machined housing that Paul Freehill  had cast, strengthened by the Foley Pattern Company in Auburn about 1984.  So engines were easy to find here, but little else.)      ps  I have used the Roamer-Duesenberg for years here to give visitors joy-rides between the house and the workshops which is about 400 yards round trip up and down the track which has about 5-7 degree incline.  When I have sat in the back seat above the end of the tailpipe, the exhaust noise is very similar to a 4 1/2 litre Bentley.   ( cutout closed)     One day a friend who brought along a young  girl. ( I had to lightly machine the brake discs of he modern car so she could stop it.  She had  a ride in the Roamer, and my son related that as she sat in the back seat, her pony-tail hair was horizontal in the airstream.    When the original owner ordered the car which he purchased with intent to set a new road record between Adelaide the state capital of South Australia and Melbourne the state capital of Victoria, the factory sent a photograph of the mile record AAA for a mile by a car of identical specification in April 1921.   One mile in 34.25 seconds is 105.15 mph.  I will not finish restoring the car for road use until I have engineered brakes that will be safe in modern traffic. I do not intend that any of us may become Darwin Award statistics.

Edited May 23, 2021 by Ivan Saxton (see edit history)

[alsancle]

2 hours ago, edinmass said:

The were still standard equipment in 1936.

Ed is referring to Duesenberg which was just selling leftover chassis that were built much earlier.

 

The only factory cutouts I am aware of as late as 1930 were Duesenberg and DuPont.  At least with American cars.

 

The VOE exhaust on the GTO is  the very last I can think of and the only since 1930.  It was a very short lived option.  There are threads on the forum discussing it.

[Str8-8-Dave]

Many Max Wedge Mopar cars had factory installed exhaust cutouts, absolutely installed by the factory.  Anyone who has heard an uncorked Max Wedge or 426 Hemi car uncorked can tell you they are annoyingly

 

 

                        LOUD

 

These were the 2x4 cross ram cars of the early 60's from the Race on Sunday, Sell on Monday horsepower wars.  Mine was a 63 Dodge 330 post.  One of my brother's high school classmates was Wayne (Butch) Feitzer and he bought a black 1963 Polara with the 13.5-1 compression 426 Max Wedge car.  He was a paint supervisor at Dearborn Steel Tubing and worked on the Thunderbolt Fairlanes driven by Hubert Platt and Phil Bonner against the Max Wedge cars.  Feitzer drove that car to work every day and parked it right up front in the management parking spaces to make sure Platt and Bonner didn't forget who their competition was.  

 

I can remember as a kid going to the local Daly's Drive In in my brothers little Healey Sprite for a coke on summer evenings and every once in awhile Butch would pull in next to us for his evening coke.  From the low seating position I had a pretty good view of the cutouts on Butch's car and always remember him starting it back up to leave.  It had that Chrysler gear reduction starter that had a unique sound and not enough power to pull the high compression cylinders of the 426 cleanly thru, it would stop for a nice spark knock for about the first 3 or 4 TDC's then rumble to life.  Very entertaining at age 13... 

 

These are the only pictures I have of my 63 330 post Max Wedge car....

 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Str8-8-Dave (see edit history)

[Dandy Dave]

My 1915 Buick C-36 Buick has a cutout from the factory. It is a 37 HP 221 CID engine. Model T fords I don't believe ever had them. Only mid to higher range cars in the brass era and beyond. 

[Rusty_OToole]

I started driving in 1967 and don't ever remember cutouts being legal. Even so, you could buy them from J C Whitney and other parts stores. I helped put one on a 63 Tbird about that time, but everyone else had headers you could unbolt the exhaust pipes from (legal).

Does anyone know when they were made illegal, or were they? Maybe you only got a ticket for excess noise?

[Bloo]

It must have varied by state or province. In Washington State, cutouts were not legal for street licensed vehicles period, never mind whether they were open or not.

[DavidAU]

They were factory fitted on the Rolls Royce Phantom 2's up to 1935 except for cars being sold new in Australia. 

Edited May 23, 2021 by DavidAU (see edit history)

[Dandy Dave]

7 hours ago, Ben P. said:

Well, that tells us that the Buick 4 had it prior to the redesigned 170 CID engine introduced in 1916. If it did carry over with the redesign it was definitely gone by the 1918 E series - it’s not in the parts-book.

My car has the larger 4 Cylinder Buick engine made at the time. The 4's were dropped in 1916 for 6's, and then a newly reintroduced 4 in 1917. I can't remember if the smaller 1915 model C-24 or C-25 Models had a cutout or not? If memory serves me correctly, These were around a 165 CID displacement engine.  

[jerry k]

My 28 Marmon speedster has one that appears to be factory.

 

[JCHansen1]

A '32 Auburn Eight I was with recently had one, and I thought they were available on Auburns thru '36. 

[TAKerry]

Not a car, but I have a 1913 Rudge motorcycle that has a foot operated lever on the muffler. The owners manual states to leave it closed for 'city driving' and open for 'country driving'. Its basically a perforated cover that spins half a turn to open the end of the muffler before it hits the tail pipe. Kinda like the damper in the bottom of a charcoal grill. Never really thought of it as a cut out but I suppose thats exactly what it is.

[60FlatTop]

BMW still has an exhaust flap valve on 2021's. My 6 liter V12 has one that actuates with throttle position and RPM. Nice sound as you nudge 100, MPH or age.

[Pfeil]

17 hours ago, Str8-8-Dave said:

Many Max Wedge Mopar cars had factory installed exhaust cutouts, absolutely installed by the factory.  Anyone who has heard an uncorked Max Wedge or 426 Hemi car uncorked can tell you they are annoyingly

 

 

                        LOUD

 

These were the 2x4 cross ram cars of the early 60's from the Race on Sunday, Sell on Monday horsepower wars.  Mine was a 63 Dodge 330 post.  One of my brother's high school classmates was Wayne (Butch) Feitzer and he bought a black 1963 Polara with the 13.5-1 compression 426 Max Wedge car.  He was a paint supervisor at Dearborn Steel Tubing and worked on the Thunderbolt Fairlanes driven by Hubert Platt and Phil Bonner against the Max Wedge cars.  Feitzer drove that car to work every day and parked it right up front in the management parking spaces to make sure Platt and Bonner didn't forget who their competition was.  

 

I can remember as a kid going to the local Daly's Drive In in my brothers little Healey Sprite for a coke on summer evenings and every once in awhile Butch would pull in next to us for his evening coke.  From the low seating position I had a pretty good view of the cutouts on Butch's car and always remember him starting it back up to leave.  It had that Chrysler gear reduction starter that had a unique sound and not enough power to pull the high compression cylinders of the 426 cleanly thru, it would stop for a nice spark knock for about the first 3 or 4 TDC's then rumble to life.  Very entertaining at age 13... 

 

These are the only pictures I have of my 63 330 post Max Wedge car....

 

 

 

Are you talking about factory installed "DUMPS" or a actual from the driver seat controlled factory cut outs like the picture below from a Pontiac GTO;

 

Pontiac, and I'm sure Chevrolet and Ford made factory "DUMPS" , but you had to crawl under the car to remove the block-off plates, see below on a 61-63 Pontiac SD setup. all factory parts.

Edited May 23, 2021 by Pfeil (see edit history)

[Steven Meixner]

The top 1 intrigued me. The dump appears to be at the front of the muffler. The pipe with 2 cutouts are what I would call standard.

[Str8-8-Dave]

42 minutes ago, Pfeil said:

Are you talking about factory installed "DUMPS" or a actual from the driver seat controlled factory cut outs like the picture below from a Pontiac GTO

Yes- to be precise, these were dumps.   Now as far as I know, the only remotely controlled cutouts are hosted by the marine industry and marketed as "Captains Call" exhaust which allows you to switch from quiet thru prop underwater exhaust or very noisy transom exhaust.

 

 

 

[Pfeil]

9 hours ago, Str8-8-Dave said:

Yes- to be precise, these were dumps.   Now as far as I know, the only remotely controlled cutouts are hosted by the marine industry and marketed as "Captains Call" exhaust which allows you to switch from quiet thru prop underwater exhaust or very noisy transom exhaust.

 

 

 

So if you are talking about dumps, the ones you have to remove by unbolting a cover plate, then if you are they are irrelevant to this topic.

[alsancle]

On boats they were still around in the 90s.

 

I’ll vote GTO for last factory auto, at least in US.

[Dandy Dave]

20 hours ago, Steven Meixner said:

The top 1 intrigued me. The dump appears to be at the front of the muffler. The pipe with 2 cutouts are what I would call standard.

The top one is similar to my 1915 Buick. There is a poppet valve that opens and dumps the exhaust before the muffler when the peddle is depressed and locked in place. 

[Str8-8-Dave]

On 5/23/2021 at 10:57 PM, Pfeil said:

So if you are talking about dumps, the ones you have to remove by unbolting a cover plate, then if you are they are irrelevant to this topic

Correct.  I should have read more carefully and didn't mean to distract from the original topic which obviously is remotely controlled cutouts.

[West Peterson]

On 5/22/2021 at 6:04 PM, alsancle said:

Ed is referring to Duesenberg which was just selling leftover chassis that were built much earlier.

 

The only factory cutouts I am aware of as late as 1930 were Duesenberg and DuPont.  At least with American cars.

 

 

Exhaust cut-out was standard equipment on 1930 Packard 7-34.

[29StutzM]

The 29-30 Stutz M had a factory cut-out and so did the 32 SV16, guessing Stutz had it until the end?

[alsancle]

5 minutes ago, 29StutzM said:

The 29-30 Stutz M had a factory cut-out and so did the 32 SV16, guessing Stutz had it until the end?

 

Do you have a picture of one?  I did not know that.

[29StutzM]

Alsancle, sorry I do not, mine was custom built because it was in pretty tough shape.  However, the Stutz club technical man is currently constructing five for club members who need them.  

You may try contacting him on the Stutz sight, good luck!

[alsancle]

14 minutes ago, 29StutzM said:

Alsancle, sorry I do not, mine was custom built because it was in pretty tough shape.  However, the Stutz club technical man is currently constructing five for club members who need them.  

You may try contacting him on the Stutz sight, good luck!

George?

[29StutzM]

No, John G but George may have info also!

[West Peterson]

On 5/27/2021 at 9:33 AM, 29StutzM said:

The 29-30 Stutz M had a factory cut-out and so did the 32 SV16, guessing Stutz had it until the end?

 

Do you know if it's a cut-out before the muffler, or incorporated within the muffler?

 

[alsancle]

55 minutes ago, West Peterson said:

 

Do you know if it's a cut-out before the muffler, or incorporated within the muffler?

 

 

 

My dad had a muffler that we just unloaded at Hershey in the last 10 years that had a valve inside the muffler.    He bought it from JC Whitney in 1959 to put in his Auburn but he sold it soon after.   Wish I had a picture.

 

Duesenberg is the only one I know where the valve is incorporated in to the muffler factory.  Are there others?

[West Peterson]

2 minutes ago, alsancle said:

 

Duesenberg is the only one I know where the valve is incorporated in to the muffler factory.  Are there others?

 

Yes. Packard 734

[ron hausmann]

Most Kissel Model 6-45 Gold Bugs I’m aware of 1920-1923 had factory option exhaust cut outs. Before the muffler operated by a floor pedal.

Ron Hausmann P.E.

[DFeeney]

Last fall I purchased a 1925 Overland Model 93 2dr as a winter Covid shut down project.  It is a 6 cylinder and to my surprise it has a exhaust cut out before the muffler operated by a cable under the dash.  Who would have thought.

[29StutzM]

West, incorporated within the muffler.