So, I worked out all of the issues I was having installing my headers and it's finally complete. Two thoughts:
1) HOLY SHEEP SH*T! I read that someone else said a while back that this was the most satisfying mod, followed closely by the intake, and I have to agree. Now that I have i/h/e done the power improvement is very noticeable.
2) DO NOT DO THIS BY YOURSELF IF THE CAR IS OLDER OR HAS A LOT OF MILES ON IT. For reals. If I knew, before I started this, what I know now about what a frickin' pain in the butt this would be I would never have even tried it. I did the work 100% by myself and it took me about 35 hours over the course of 5 days to get this done. Most of this was because of struggling with stubborn, corroded bolts. The bolts that connected my old, stock cat to the resonater on my Espelier exhaust were so rusted that PB Blaster did almost nothing... I had to cut them apart with a sawz-all. 5 DIablo metal demo blades and 3 hours later they finally gave up the ghost.
Now, for my problem...
So, I have the ARK headers and they came with a test pipe. I bought a hi-flow cat and installed that instead, but it's about 1.5 inches longer than the test pipe. The end result is that the exhaust is in the car so tightly that it is solidly pushing on the little box that hangs down from under the trunk between the two mufflers. This is obviously not good as I can crack the downpipes or the collector. So, I was thinking about trying to fix this myself by cutting out about 2 inches of exhaust pipe behind the resonator and patching it with one of these:
http://www.verociousmotorsports.com/...nt-Connections
Does anyone have any experience with clamps like these? Should I just bite the bullet and take it to a muffler shop and have them cut out a section and weld it? Anyone have a ballpark figure on what taking it to a muffler shop to have the cut/weld done would cost?
1) HOLY SHEEP SH*T! I read that someone else said a while back that this was the most satisfying mod, followed closely by the intake, and I have to agree. Now that I have i/h/e done the power improvement is very noticeable.
2) DO NOT DO THIS BY YOURSELF IF THE CAR IS OLDER OR HAS A LOT OF MILES ON IT. For reals. If I knew, before I started this, what I know now about what a frickin' pain in the butt this would be I would never have even tried it. I did the work 100% by myself and it took me about 35 hours over the course of 5 days to get this done. Most of this was because of struggling with stubborn, corroded bolts. The bolts that connected my old, stock cat to the resonater on my Espelier exhaust were so rusted that PB Blaster did almost nothing... I had to cut them apart with a sawz-all. 5 DIablo metal demo blades and 3 hours later they finally gave up the ghost.
Now, for my problem...
So, I have the ARK headers and they came with a test pipe. I bought a hi-flow cat and installed that instead, but it's about 1.5 inches longer than the test pipe. The end result is that the exhaust is in the car so tightly that it is solidly pushing on the little box that hangs down from under the trunk between the two mufflers. This is obviously not good as I can crack the downpipes or the collector. So, I was thinking about trying to fix this myself by cutting out about 2 inches of exhaust pipe behind the resonator and patching it with one of these:
http://www.verociousmotorsports.com/...nt-Connections
Does anyone have any experience with clamps like these? Should I just bite the bullet and take it to a muffler shop and have them cut out a section and weld it? Anyone have a ballpark figure on what taking it to a muffler shop to have the cut/weld done would cost?
