I would say, it's pretty freakin loud. Once you TOUCH that gas pedal, you are like instantly noticed.

When I got done with my headers, me and my dad didn't put the y pipe on because I had to get my transmission replaced, and didn't want to do it twice. We got a flat bed trailor from a guy he works with and put it on it and brought it to the tranny place, the car wouldn't move at all in gear so I had to get it replaced *housing is busted.* Since right now it IS open headers, we aren't going to take a chance and drive it back, so with the new transmission, we are still putting it back on the trailor to bring back home to put the rest of the system on.

 

I guess I'll wait then. You don't tempt the cops around here. They'll pounce on you like wolves on a wounded rabbit. Too bad I don't have a couple 3" glasspacks I could slip on so I could do the headers this weekend and throw the exhaust on when it gets here. I'm still going to drive around with open headers for a few minutes to irritate the neighborhood, though.

 

Yeah Crystal Lake/Lakewood/Carpentersville/Algonquin/LITH cops in IL are pretty bad. In Algonquin you'll get a ticket for having a black car, it's ridiculous. What part of IL you at? Running open headers is OK to a point, I guess, but if you're worried about any run ins with the law, I wouldn't, especially if you can't afford to pay for a ticket

 

I live in Carol Stream and go to school in Glendale Heights. Cops around here are pretty nasty, got crazy students flying around street racing, suburban folks in sport-utes and sedans trying to go faster than everyone else, and low income people with cars that look about the same as the ones you'd find in a junkyard (some I think should go get one out of a junkyard, it might run better). I haven't been pulled over yet, but that's mostly because there's always been a bigger fish.

 

i drove around here with open headers once a week for about a month
never got pulled over and even had a cop give me a thumbs up...once lol
with the CR and cam chopping away, it was freaking LOUD!!!!!!!!
i only drove it on sundays and when it was light out tho because it attracted ALOT of attention!

 

It's only dangerous to your ears

Here's vids of my car with LT headers, X-pipe, and Borla straight-through pipes.

http://kraest.com/vette/stuntin.mpg
http://kraest.com/vette/run.mpg
http://kraest.com/vette/idle.mpg

Mike

 

Right now i'm running my mac mids with only the y-pipe connected and it is freaking loud. I drove by this guy in a red trans am the other day and his draw just dropped LOL it was pretty funny. Whenever i see a cop i try and keep it in the low rpm's I don't know what they'd do. But I was next to a truck yesterday that defintly had open headers and there was another mustang cruizing around that was really loud so i'm not the only one.
Should I worry about heat from the y-pipe though? My dad says he doesnt want me driving it because he thinks the exhaust coming out my damage something.

 

As long as the heats away from fuel lines you're perfectly safe. If it's near fuel lines and you want added peace of mind, get some heat wraps/shields.