Performance • Re: Exhaust upgrades?

After doing a lot of reading around and talking to a few local guys I decided against wrapping the downpipes for a handful of reasons, namely that this vehicle is a daily driver, and if any fluids leak into the wrap it'll quickly deteriorate it, not to mention the constant heat cycling as well as the winter salt conditions is going to wreak havoc on it. I don't want to have to re-wrap the pipes in a short period of time, or even worse replace them due to corroding the pipes under the wrap.

I did get the downpipes installed today without too much issue. The biggest problem was getting the old downpipes off as the hardware was all very rusty and baked on. Lots of oxy/acetylene torch work, but thankfully all the oxygen sensors came out fine. Some of the studs came out of the turbos when removing the nuts, so I just replaced the studs. Any of the ones that stayed in I took a die and cleaned up the studs and installed new lock nuts and flat washers. Installed new turbo outlet gaskets as well as the midpipe gaskets and hardware. I had to take a hammer and massage one small area of the rear downpipe to get it to clear the subframe a bit nicer so it wasn't so tight against it.

I also did gear the rear exhaust section lowered down, scuffed with a red Scotchbrite pad, and painted with low gloss black. Should hopefully be wrapping everything up tomorrow.

---