Hey all, I've gone from stock dumps, engine pipes, cats and a trust 2.5" catback system and now fitting some dumps and test pipes. i imported a set of megan racing dumps and test pipes, the dump pipes are nice, fitted up well, but went to bolt on the test pipes tonight and the drivers side doesn't line up with the cat back system. The passenger side lines up pretty good, but the drivers side flange on the test pipe is about 50m lower than the cat back pipe flange. It puts a heap of strain on the dumps if I try and bend it up that far, might snap the bolts off the turbo exhaust housing if i'm not careful and go too far. I've done a search and everyone says they fit up pretty good, but most go on to say they've welded cats in also, which is obviously modifying the pipes. Has anyone had dramas just fitting the test pipes, no cats????? if so, whats the easiest fix??? as i'm not sure if the test pipes haven't been mandrel bent properly, or if the dumps haven't been done quite right.
have you tried loosening them up front first? you don't get much rotation but it doesn't take much to get movement at the back. unfortunately the exhaust manifolds have the most 'adjustability' but it's not worth messing with it. You might just find they're centered and you wouldn't want to change it to sort out a bit of cheap exhaust that may have a manufacturing flaw. '50m', did you mean 5cm? one of my megan/tuneagent front pipes is still about 1cm shorter than the other but a custom resonator section took out the stress, are you happy with what you have back there?
they hang vertically down 50mm. so rotating them won't help, and I meant 50mm, not 50m sorry I think the pipe is bent wrong, cause its already pretty close to the floor at the starter motor area. Looks like I'll have to get it to work so I can weld on the cats straight away, problem is driving it there. Putting the cats on will fix the problem as I can angle them any way I want.
Mine were Tune Agent and 10mm out! Got the pipe reheated at the exhaust shop to take the stress out. Had to put them in originally without the mount bolted to the gearbox and then had that modified to fit also as it was way out. Try that maybe - fit pipes first. then mounts!!! MattB
I heard about this a few years ago. EnuffZ had a similar issue and the exhaust shop had to heat and bend them slightly. Though mostly they appear to fit perfect. Probably one of the bends was bent a few degrees short. Put some heat on them and bend them, shouldn't be too hard... if it is an exhaust place will do it pretty cheaply. Good luck, Egg
If I had heated and bent the dump pipe, it would have fixed it, but I had already heat wrapped it, so tried to avoid that. Didin't want to unbolt dump and re-wrap. I Have heated the test pipe at a couple of places and have taken about 25mm out of the misalignment, will get the other 25mm out when I weld the cat in and just bend the pipe slightly. it'll all work out good, just taking ages to do it right.
Just for people who do a search on dumps after having a similar fitment problem, I heated the test pipe bends to make alignment a bit closer, got about 20mm better, but still 30-40mm out of whack, but when I cut the cats out of my old engine pipes, I welded them onto the test pipes and everything worked out good. If I could only attache a photo, I could show the finished product. Looks pretty good all wrapped in heat wrap, and the ground clearance is a fair bit better. Sounds a bit deeper too and growls a bit more on boost. Boost seems to come in a bit earlier and harder than before, as far as more max power goes, I cant' tell yet. Haven't flogged it enough. Engine was running on 4 or 5 cylinders when it first fired up (8 weeks without running) I think the injector plugs are an issue. If I wanted to just bolt on the test pipes and not weld in the cats, I reckon heating and bending the dumps would have been the best fix as it would have lifted the flange up on the end of the test pipe, and also fixed the problem of the drivers side pipe being about 10mm too short.
Hmmmmm?? Mine fit like a glove. Before anything was tightened up on mine, the downpipe, testpipe, X-pipe and mufflers were all attached very loosely first. There is some forgiveness in that there are slots in the flanges themselves that will give you that extra little rotation or adjustment necessary so that everything will line up and then bolted down into place.
