I am looking at purchasing a nice set of used clamp on mufflers and was a little concerned about relying on the clamps and losing a muffler. I was considering drilling a 1/4" hole in the muffler and through the tip (where the muffler clamp on) and installing one stainless steel machine bolt for a little extra insurance. This would also allow me to remove them as a buddy suggested tacking them with the tig welder onto the tip. It also appears that I will need to remove and rotate 180 degrees downward the steering cylinders and possibly have new steering line hoses made up to allow for clearance when the drives are all the way up as the X dimension is all the way up on the drives. I don't anticipate the single bolt will cause a restriction issue in the tip. Any suggestions or feedback would be appreciated.

My CMI clamp ons had a hole for a bolt I think about 1/4".

I insisted on using a through bolt with self locking nut and
fabricated the tool to install and hold the nut way up inside
the muffler.

Installed 4 in 2004 and they are still there. It was well worth
it, if for nothing else but the confidence I have had.

Pesky Varmint

I have the Gibson clamp on mufflers and I put a couple of self tap stainless screws and havn't had an issue.

Thanks for the suggestions

I have the Gibson clamp on and just use their mounting with no problems. I run in Lake Huron which gets pretty rough, I've run 70+ in 2 1/2 footers and they stayed tight. I take them off now on the big lake and put them on when I'm going down the rivers or inland lakes.

Installed the mufflers a few weeks ago using a stainless steel bolt through the mufflers, a stainless steel screw and the two clamps. They are very solid and work great. Thanks for the tips.

How much power are you guys runing and did it affect the performance.

I was running about 600hp through mine and didn't really notice much. I never did a with and without test the weather got bad at the end of the season. I'm rebuilding the motor and should be 700+hp. I'll run a test with the new motor.