Well as the topic said, it only took me like 4 hours to do the install, LOL. I'm proud of myself, and thanks to Bagel Williams and Bishop for their assistance. For a guy who just did his own oil change for the first time a month ago after getting his R, I'm proud of myself no matter how simple of a mod it is for most of you probably, hehe. The most difficult thing was just getting under the car since my wonderful Sears jacks didn't allow me to get the car up much more than a couple feet to put the jack stands under. Getting all the stock bolts off was also pretty tough, again due to my tiny selection of, you guessed it, small Sears tools. All and all, pretty simple mod, but working under the car with a foot or so of space blows.

Couple questions, I think maybe I should run my car by a local exhaust shop to have him make sure I got everything lined up and bolted together good. All the parts from SMSP made the install completely bolt up but the JDM header seems to be angled upward a tiny bit and meets the front of the cat at kind of a angle as well. Has anyone else experienced this, like it's not quite perfectly straight together. I can actually see some of the little o-ring or whatever it's called between the cat and header too. That kind of worries me as it was such a tight fit with the stock exhaust. The other thing that worried me was when we started the engine for the first time there was some light chemical smelling smoke coming from what looked like the top of the header. I figured that was all the finger prints and residue from handling it. It went away after a ride around the block.

Impressions: First off, it's f'in 3:15 in the morning so I didn't get to really burn up the street but all three of us went for a short ride and the car pulled noticeably harder from 4-5K all the way to redline then it did previously, which really surprised me having an extra 375lbs of bodies in the car. I'm looking forward to driving it tomorrow to see how the butt-dyno really feels with just me in the car. I'm sure only time will tell, but regarding all the talk about the carsound cat, it seems to be a very sturdy piece and there are a lot of spot welds from SMSP. I haven't really noticed any noises other than stock sounds. It's amazing how much bigger the cat was when bolted up to the stock b-pipe, but I like the sound of the stock exhaust (no sound) and so far the gains are impressive. I think I have a good combo here. I want to thank Dave/SMSP again for his help setting me up with the right stuff.

And once again, thanks to all you HT-er's who have encouraged and helped me get to a point where I'm doing the work on my car myself instead of having someone else do it for me. It's been a learning experience each and every time and I'm just having more and more fun

 

Did you remove the B-pipe bottleneck?

 

Congrats on doing the install yourself I'm suprised there isn't more sound from your header. Air sounds. None at all?

 

Good post, I'm considering that type of set-up as well. Although at this point, some sticky tires and a helmet might be a better option....

 

You need all of that.

 

I know!

Chris, who needs some $$

 

There is 2 bottle neck on the B-Pipe !
Both are to be removed or only the one just after the cat ?

 

The one after the cat is the worst. If you remove the second one (end of B-pipe) you'll have to modify your muffler flange too!!!

 

Dutch: I haven't removed any bottlenecks yet - that's a job for another time, though i was just considering SMSP's piece that requires some welding, which I'd leave for a trained professional, hehe.

b2: no i haven't noticed any more noise, but I've barely driven it. I'll know more when I can get a chance to drive it more.

Dave told me that the slight fitment issue was normal. So as long as I'm not leaking exhaust, I guess it's on there tight, I couldn't get it any tighter... I might still have a friend who does muffler/exhaust jack her up and take a look see just to make sure I didn't do anything dumb, hehe.

Socal Itr: a helmet and sticky tires is also a good idea hehe... i've got the helmet, and i've been pondering some Kumho Victo's, but that's going to take me out of Solo-2 class STX where I'm leading our club in STX and STS. I'm not sure if I care if I go to Street Prepared class, I'm not competing nationally or anything. And the stick(ier) tires would be nice for track days too, though my Azenis have been doing pretty well. The last mod was Hawk HP+ pads which contributed to -2 seconds of my best time at my fav track. Highly recommended.

-Ben, who thinks there are too many things to spend his money on

 

Well congrats on the upgrades I am probably going to do the same thing here real soon after I get my motor registered and smogged. Also bonus points for doing it yourself

 

do-it-yourself
pay to have it done

congrats!

 

thanks guys - there were a couple times i was asking myself WTF I was doing under a 2600lbs car busting my hands and arms on the underside of the car trying to get all those locked bolts off, hehe. I don't even remotely claim to know anything about the inner workings of mechanics, but for bolt-ons I figure I can pretend...

BTW: anyone know if that very thin/lightweight heatshield that sits between the body and the cat is necessary? i forgot to put it back on.

 

oh yeah forgot to mention - no CEL's!

 

Nice, I want to get into autoXing and more, but I first need to learn more about the classes, and what puts you in each, requirements, all the little things.

 

Well, you can do just about any bolt-on mod to your car and be in a class like STS, that's where a lot of us end up. If you have an R, which has a LSD, then you go in STX. More serious mods would put you in class called Street Prepared (SP) or even higher into Street Mod (SM). Just about anything goes in SM. Of course there are the stock classes, and they are all grouped depending on what kind of car you have. For example, the WRX, RSX-S, IS300, ITR are all in the same stock class I believe. There are a few other groups and classes but that's the main ones. Just go to an autox event and start in novice which most clubs will have, then you can move out of it depending on their rules or your comfort level. Autocross is fun, cheap, and not too punishing on your car, IMHO. Track/Road-course seems a lot more strenuous on your car I think. Running near red-line for 15-30 minutes at a time and cooking your brake system, not to mention your tires. The competition would seem greater on the track, but I find it about as stimulating doing autox too. Plus all the track events I've been in were touring/lapping days so you can't pass in corners, which would make it a lot more exciting. I'm just not quite ready to have my mint R trading paint with other people yet. I was thinking about getting a little 91 hatch SI for just that purpose, but it needed a lot of work to be competitive, and do I really want to sink *more* money into this hobby right now?
[/end ramble]

anyone feel free to correct me on the solo-2 classes, I probably missed something obvious

 

I wouldnt worry about that thin little heatshield, I took mine off when i put on the header and the cat. I may be wrong though, lets wait for a pro to respond