True, I'm sure Gadget has some input that would help explain how this thing works and why some people have had issue.

 

What a catastrophe.

I go to get my stainless bung welded on today, local shop does the work on the vehicle, $15 and 20 minutes later I'm on my way home.

Get home and realize the bung is leaking . Shop is closed. I contact a local performance shop guy who does side work and he says bring it by to have it fixed the right way.

I go by his house, in 10 minutes he has the down pipe removed, we laugh at the bird poo weld on the bung and the 1/2" gap missed causing the leak. He grinds all the old crap weld off, re-welds it very nicely. Double checks everything and starts to reinstall.

During the reinstall 2 of the 3 flange studs snap. The guy tries for 3 hours to remove the broken studs, doing all manner of welding on nuts to the broken studs only to have them break again. He finally tells me I'd better take it to a GOOD exhaust shop to have them re-tapped to do it right. I pay him $30 (which he refused to take, but I forced him for his 3.5 hours of work on 2 bolts as he really did try his best I believe) and leave with a leaking flange (rumble rumble rumble).

So I drop it off at a local well respected exhaust shop this morning. They take a look and say "yep, we've seen this several times and it's pricey to fix". The guy tells me he'll try everything the can to remove the studs on the car, but to expect to have the y-pipe dropped (lowering motor and all that crap to get it out). He said if they had to do that it would be about a 10 hour job (YIKES). I've yet to hear back.

So now I'm looking roughly a $550 exhaust bung. What a major PITA!

 

Damn Speedy,
That is one expensive bung hole ya got there...


I will definitely be posting up with what I find, problems, videos, results yadda yadda yadda... It will be cool to compare dyno notes and see if its worth the upgrade. My buddy has had some good practice for the last couple years learning about tuning cars so hopefully he will be able to iron something out pretty quickly after everything is installed.

 

OUCH

Yeah I had one of my flange studs strip out on reinstall, but I got the damn NAPA to replace it for free because they tried to slide it past me (like I wouldn't notice an exhaust leak, bastards).

I have to say, if they're having to remove your exhaust collectors, you should almost get headers installed while they're in there, that's why they're so expensive to install in the first place

EDIT: Oh and good call on the Cirkit Boss aux. fuse box BTW. I have the 7-circuit version of it for powering my WB O2 and gauge, FTC, and inverter.

 

peh.. I wonder what he'll say?

 

You know, I actually considered doing the headers since they had to remove all this, but I called TRD last week to ask them a question and one of their guys (that's been there for years as I talked to him several years ago) said to leave the stock manifolds on there. He asked me what I had and I told him "stock manifolds" and his exact words were "those are VERY nice pieces and leave them right where they are". It kind of surprised me that he didn't recommend their headers to go with the SC.

Combine that with all the horror stories I hear about the headers leaking, and I've shied away from them.

 

I dunno, I've heard good things about headers with a supercharged engine. But, I suppose leaking is something to consider.

 

You'd think. The other thing that the exhaust shop told me today was that the catalytic converters are the main point of restriction and that unless I did away with those, changing any other part of the exhaust really wouldn't help a whole lot. They said a very slight difference can be made, but nothing that would really make a difference.

I dunno, I don't have the resources to be R&D to find out. If this were going to be some kind of race truck, I'd go all out, but this being a daily driver is another thing.

 

Ummm... yikes. He's VERY uninformed.


You just have to use the right gaskets. Do NOT use the TRD gaskets, or copper, or anything except the stock manifold gaskets. Works just fine. You also need to REALLY be sure that you do the initial heat/cool/re-torque cycle. VERY important for keeping things sealed in the long run.

 

Geez you're getting some horrible advice. A shop is suggesting that you pull the cat?

Dude... Magnaflow free-flow cat, $56 shipped...
http://search.ebay.com/Carsound-Magn...ytic-Converter

Buy the right pipe size...

 

I don't doubt it. That's the problem with living in middle Tennessee. There's practically NO ONE that knows anything about import performance. Roll up with a Chevy 350 and you'll get all the knowledge you could ask for.

I did searches here and on TTORA and found tons of posts saying that using stock manifold gaskets work great on that part of the system, but that the round gaskets everywhere else leak like sivs. I'm talking TRD headers here as that's really all I looked in to.

 

And... that's what WE are here for.


Yeup... sounds like familiar advice.

 

Perhaps other headers work better at sealing, like Downey?

 

Well, I'll see what the exhaust shop says. If they come back saying the cross over is damaged or something I'll look at getting the headers instead. I haven't heard from them since I dropped the truck off at 8 this morning, so I'm assuming the worst and they had to pull the crossover.

 

Bummer Speedy, that is a bad problem alright. I had one of those studs on the exhaust manifold break on me removing the nut but lucky for me I could drill it out and use an easyout on it while the engine was on a stand.

BTW the newer OEM tubular style manifolds are suppost to be better than the older cast iron manifolds. Maybe that's why the TRD guy said leave them on. I think they are fine, that's what I'm using.

My A/F ratio calibrator seems to be working fine, I don't run 14.7 in closed loop boost.

 

Well, I guess I semi dodged a bullet on this one. Exhaust shop just called. The tech was able to extract the studs and replace them with new ones. Total charge $312. Still pricey for a dern exhaust bung, but not as bad as it could have been.

 

NICE. Give me some more info on this. How long have you had it installed and calibrated? What do your closed loop boost AFRs look like?

This is something I've been reading up on, but it's like smoke and mirrors trying to find any concrete info.

 

Well at least its fixed huh. I was really worried about snapping a stud when I had to disconnect the down pipe on my 95 Taurus. It really helps to clean the threads with a wire brush or something and soak good with PB Blaster.

 

Yeah, still hurts though. I'm gonna really look it over good when I pick it up to make sure everything looks good.

So tell me more about this AFR calibrator? See questions 2 posts back.

 

Well its the samething Brian was telling you about earler, he calls it a oxygen sensor calibrator or a AFRSC. Here's the link:
http://www.urdusa.com/product_info.p..._id=1230100028

I need to tune mine some more, but in closed loop I'm around 13 in very low boost and more like 12.5 a little higher boost and then jump to about 10.5 in open loop. The ECU doesn't fight with me on the tuning with it, in fact it seems to help.