Andy.E said:
You will have to cut the fiberglass. They did this at the factory as well so there's no way around it. I believe you also need to buy different rocker panel trim.
However, before you go any farther I would encourage you to give some more thought to this. Yes, the sound is wonderful and they add to the looks of the car. My '65 has sidepipes and I deliberately looked for that when I was searching for a car. I love having them. The downside is that they somewhat limit my use of the car. They are loud. On short trips it's no problem and that's mainly what I use the car for. But if I wanted a Corvette that I could regularly take on long road trips I would not want them (I wear earplugs for trips with sustained freeway driving over 30 minutes). Also keep in mind that the acoustic properties of a coupe means that they will be even louder than they are in my convertible.
A great middle ground is the off-road exhaust. You get the chambered pipes and the great sound, but they exit from the rear so it's not as loud inside the car.
That's just my two cents from my experience. At the end of the day it's a personal choice so I won't tell you one way or the other is right.
I have to agree with Andy. Give it a lot of thought before you do it and if possible drive a C2 with sidepipes first.
I LOVE the pipes on my car and was delibertly looking for a car with sidepipes when I was looking for my Vette. I knew if i found the right car but it didn't have the pipes I'd have to add them on. My car is a coupe and my friends '65 with pipes is a vert and mine is much louder than his simply because in a coupe you are stuck inside a an acoustic chamber (and ask an acoustic engineer and fiberglass makes a great acoustic chamber! LOL) but on a vert the sound doesn't get trapped inside.
As Andy said, for short trips I love the sound, it's like music to my ears but for long trips it can really start to get to you. After a 2 hour trip you start to wonder why you wanted them in the first place - at least until the next day and another short trip again
LOL
When I got back from driving home from Carlisle (a 3 1/2 hour drive because of a stupid wrong turn) my ears were ringing for the rest of the night!
Do I love the pipes on my car? YES!
would I buy another C2 with pipes? hmmm, maybe, I'd have to think about it. I DO love the looks - i really think they do look a lot better with the pipes on but the sound DOES get to you at times.
I guess it really depends on if you are going to be doing a lot of longer trips or not in your car.
Also, i understand that a lot of the aftermarket repro pipes are actually a lot louder than the factory pipes. Mine are not original installed option but were installed on my car by a previous owner with the actual factory pipes and if the repros are louder than anything over 30 min. or an hour would be impossible to bear on the highway. Of course, I also have a 4:11 rearend gearing so my car is revving pretty high at highway speeds of 70-75mph.
If you decide you want the pipes you may also want to consider looking to see if they make different baffles you can install inside them to help tone down the volume.
