Here is my situation. I like the look of the 60" pipes on the HHR. But having the stock or aftermarket muffler protruding from the bumper, makes the laker pipes really stand out saying "I am not really a functional exhaust!” Now my question is there a way to "hide" the muffler so the lakers do look real?

 

Lake pipes not laker pipes.

 

I was thinking about that before I decided to make mine functional. I was going to put the muffler as close to the rear axle as possable and put a tip that points down on to it and paint them black, but It would still look cheap in the winter time with no smoke coming out of them. I'll post pics after this Sunday on how to get them to be functional pipes.

 

Dont forget... EVEN WITH THE TURN-DOWN, the exhaust-tip cut-out in the rear valance is still present!!!
As for making the Lake pipes functional... note that you 'may' end up melting some of your urethane body components (running boards, etc...)!!! Not to mention you'd be converting your exhaust to a dual set-up... which, I'm assuming, would cross awfully close to gas-tank components at one point or another.

I'm ALL for a functional mod like this - just be careful!!! (I'm having flashback of self-imploding Pintos )

 

I went to every muffler shop in town and seen how they would run it. I'm not going to get any of them to do it as the cheapest place was about 800 bucks.

 

This same thing was talked about the other day in another thread. I'm with you though, I think it looks dumb (no offense to anyone). It's obviously fake. I wouldn't care if they were functional or not, as long as you couldn't see the exhaust or the cutout in the bumper.

There is a guy that I work with who has a Ford Ranger with lake pipes. It looks pretty cool til you walk around the rear and see the tailpipe sticking out the side. I want to cut it off his truck so bad!!! LOL At least on a Ranger it would be easy enough to hide.

 

I could care less about the pipes not working. I don't like the look of the muffler in the back with lake pipes. I want to hide the real muffler if I decide to go with lake pipes. After being a motorcycle mechanic for a couple of years I can get really anal retentive about how things look and flow.

 

But what do you do about the bumper cutout?

 

If you can find a place to dump or route the exhaust, then you can get the bumper cutout plastic welded. If one was to go through that trouble, you may as well fill in the reflector spots and smooth it out a little more.

 

That would be the way to go, but I don’t know anyone with a plastic welder. All of my motorcycle buddies use acetone and legos to repair cracks in there fairings. I don’t own that many legos… anymore