Hi John
We have been working on exhaust systems for now a couple of years to compete with gardner or to make a concours system and over comes the shortfalls of the gardner systems which i think are
1. Gardner is very expensive and inline is anywhere from 10-20% cheaper.
2. Garder has a very restrictive muffler that does not flow well and none of the pure stock guys will use it - Inline has a flow through muffler that looks bone stock and on the dyno only lost 6-8 HP per run. So it has great performance.
3. Gardner will not sell pieces of the kit - so if you need one pipe or hanger you have to buy it all - At inline Tube you can get one hanger or a tail pipe seperate - Some guys have some NOS pieces like tail pipes or head pipes and don't want the entire system.
4. Gardner will only make systems in the stock size, so if your car has a 2" tail pipe that is what you get and there is no discussion of making it bigger. Inline Tube will make select pipes bigger than stock but not too much bigger. So If you car has a 2" tail pipe it can be made in 2 1/4" or if you have a RA 4 Car the head pipe can be made from the stock 2 1/4" that is reduced to 2" at the muffler and be made in 2 1/2" and reduced to 2 1/4" at the muffler bringing it up a full size.
5. Inline tube systems are all made off the originals and fit on a actual car so they can be adjusted to fit better than any other system on the market.
6. Inline Tube makes some systems that gardner does not - 72 Pontiac GTO, 73 Pontiac GTO, 68 GTO Automatic with the tuner pipes, 68 GTO chrome extension pipes, Etc.
I have bought from gardner for years also - i have there systems on a few of my cars and besides the price and the muffler problem - they fit very well and i was happy. But i tried to buy pieces and the answer is NO, it tried to buy hangers and the answer is NO, It was a complete system the way they make it or go pound sand. I think it can be done better and that is what we are trying to do.
As for the fit of the systems we fit them up and they are excellent BUT systems fit different cars differently and since we are a short order company everytime a part is made it is impossible for it to be exactly the same - The hardness of the tube changes everytime it is ordered, even the best bender has slop in the tooling, and not all cars are exactly the same so there are many variables - A new car production run makes all the parts at once and stocks them so they are exactly the same - the aftermarket has a limited buyer and makes only a few at a time. Gardner as well as us try very hard to make the best parts we can but this is not a perfect world.
We suggest that a exhaust shop install the system so that if a bend happens to need a another degree of bend or 2 it is not a problem.
Our systems are very car specific as were the originals - there is no good one size fits all or easy system they are all very car specific - Auto Trans, manual trans, tips , no tips, RA head pipes , Standard head pipes - there could be 6 systems for one year make and model depending on the options of the car.
Our goal is to make a stock concours system that can be put on a show car - and when you want to drive it or Race your car, it flows great - I now have systems on all my own cars and we pure stock race and drive these cars that there is no lack of performance.
here are some links - and if you need ref's on any systems PM me and i will give you names of customers that have used them.
WWW.inlinetube.com
http://www.inlinetube.com/Exhaust/Exhaust.htm
.JPG)
or on EBAY
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/70-71...item2c583cf80b
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/70-71...item2eb0bf9aa9
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/68-GT...item2eb0bf627f
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/69-GT...item2eb0bf81f7
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/72-GT...item2eb0bfa7eb
Here is the link to our web site