I had this header with the same motor in my last car (EJ2) with a proper test pipe and it never had any problems in the one year I had it.

When I swapped the motor into my new chassis (EJ6), I didn't have the proper test pipe like on the last car. I drove it to the exhaust shop open header, and they "fabricated" a pipe that would bolt up to my header. The problem we ran into was with the spring & bolts that hold the two together. The bolts were really short, and the shop ended up cutting the springs to make the bolts fit. Even with the springs cut in half, they were still fully binding, which meant no play for the header when the motor is running.

Well after only a month with the new exhaust setup, my header cracked. I need to know if I need to get the proper flange like this one:



OR if i simply need to use longer bolts with uncut (longer) springs and make sure they're not binding when they're fully tightened.











Modified by dinko at 7:31 PM 7/10/2008

 

The header is getting rewelded tonight or tomorrow.

I need to know if I should order the Blox flange that I posted up there and use longer bolts with new uncut springs, or if the exhaust shop's expanding of the pipe (pictured) will be fine if I just use longer bolts with new uncut springs

thanks in advance!

edit: here's a picture of what the test pipe looked like on the EJ2

(if you took the test pipe picture and pulled it apart, and then only used the left side, the side with the two bolt flange, and welded it to the rest of the piping, you would have exactly the setup i had on my last car; except i had longer bolts on there i'm sure)



btw i've never ran a flex pipe as I've PM'd Mr. SMSP and he told me i just need to use the correct flange


Modified by dinko at 4:55 PM 7/10/2008

 

nobody? i sad

 

Read the first line of your starter post. People just be go'in by your request.

 

okay deleted it...?

 

should i try a diff forum?

 

Instead of my replica hytech crackin my exhaust cracked in half.. so i put a flex pipe in for 100..works great so far

 

weird. where exactly did it crack?

got the header rewelded today. the welder told me that no filler was used between the seams where the pipes butt up. the part where one pipe slides into another pipe doesn't need filler because it's just using the second layer of piping to use as filler. hope that makes sense. he drew a quick picture for me. hah

anyways.

he made a good point about spring bolts (and springs in general i guess). if you take a spring and cut it exactly in half, you will have automatically doubled the strength of that spring. in my case, the spring was made twice as strong as stock (which ultimately leads to less play for the header) and being that the springs were binding all the way + high rpm + autox slalom course made for some nice vibrations which in turn BROKE the weld (not cracked the header)

she's fixed now, i just have to take the proper steps to make sure it's strong enough to hold the exhaust together but able to move enough if there are strong enough vibrations. really long bolts + plenty of washers should do the trick...

 

mig weld