I'm thinking about ditching my 60mm RS*R in favor of a 2.5" VSRExhaust setup. I think I can sell my RS*R and use that to fund the custom setup which will hopefully be a little lighter, flow a little more, and be something a bit better suited for a track car. (I'd hate to damage the RS*R on the track since they are discontinued)

I've seen pics of the tubing kits but wanted to see some pics of them installed. I really don't like most muffler shop exhaust setups cause they look generic and don't have the same "fit and finish" of a nice off the shelf aftermarket exhaust. I was hoping to work with an exhaust shop that was willing to be a bit more detail oriented during the install so it looks more like your avg aftermarket exhaust. Has anyone done anything similar? I'm also hoping to use as few flanges as possible to save weight. Someone at KTeller seemed to think the slip fittings should stay together just fine w/o the clamps.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated, thanks!

 

They do slip fit but you are supposed to use the supplied clamp. I've had 2 of there kits on 2 different cars, one crx and the other a 93 HB. Ill try and find a pic.



I have since put on a bigger muffler to quite it down.

 

im using a VRS kit w/ a exmag from an RSX on my DC2. the muffler required a little fabbing, but the fitment was spot on with the kit. I can get you some photos of the undercarriage next week when ill have the car on a lift. Have received many compliments on the piping itself, its quality stuff. i took mine to a fabricator who usually makes custom headers (CPR fab in costa mesa) instead of your typical corner muffler shop. welds are super clean & give the exhaust a very nice finish, looks top notch.

I had originally kept the slip fitting w/ the clamp on the axle back, but it was coming loose every 2 weeks or so, so its since been welded. I would weld them all to prevent having to come back & adjust fitment every couple weeks.

 

arent those kits slide in pipe design?
i got one of those and it added up to about same price as buying a premade kit

and was still loud

slip fitment sucks because you cant just upgrade the axle back

you have to cut and weld the muffler every time.

but in general im not very satisfied with this custom exhaust thing.
after alot of work trying to fit it properly

 

gutted-dx, I'm mainly looking for undercarriage shots to see how it all fits together and what people may have done to make it look less like a ghetto muffler shop exhaust.

Local, I think I saw you post awhile back about the VSR setup, per your sig I was hoping it was on a DA I'd very much appreciate some undercarriage pics, especially since it sounds like you did something similar to what I'd like to do. I have specific thoughts about how the hangers should look...etc.

How much overlap is there in the slip fittings? I was assuming a couple inches, and thus if the exhaust doesn't move fore/aft then it should stay put, but sounds like that's not the case. I HATE those exhaust clamps and refuse to use them. I also don't like it when an exhaust is one piece front to back, I like the axle back and b-pipe to be able to be separated so you can remove them independently while working on the car. What I'm envisioning is welding all the slip fittings except one in the area right before the exhaust goes over the LCA (typical place for aftermarket exhausts to come apart. If the slip fitting isn't enough then I'm fine w/ welding in a flange. I'd much rather do that than use those stupid clamps.

If you don't mind my asking, how much did CPR charge you? I'm trying to figure out how much it might end up costing, and that place is closer than the other shop that has been recommended to me.

 

It was a lot more than i was hoping to pay honestly.. kinda screwed myself by agreeing to pay by the hour, they charge $75/hr. We cut a deal after so many hours because the price was absurd, but it was still FAR more than i was hoping to pay for labor alone. I would approach them and try and get a base price for the install, which i believe is a reasonable request. They're so used to doing everything from scratch I believe that led to some confusion on pricing this accordingly for me. If they've got a base price they'll be more motivated to to get it done in a timely manner + wont cost you an arm and a leg. I basically got charged the same price for fabbing a whole exhaust, but being as it was already cut specifically to fit they car- their work was cut out for them for the most part, they really didn't have to fab do much aside from the axle back fitment.

The overlap is fine, 2-3 inches. Probably only required adjustment on mine due to the Exmag fitment. Would have had enough clearance if we didn't have to chop it so short in order to get it to fit cleanly.

My system disconnects exactly like the OEM piping does- aside from the weld at the axle back. In hindsight I wish we would have welded a flange there, hasn't been to big of an issue, but would be nice. The flanges werent readily available & weren't cheap. We used the OEM rubber hangers & locations. My set up is 2.5 & includes a high flow cat & resonator- looks very clean.

Will have photos middle of next week.

 

i got one of those kits from http://www.mandrelexhaustsystems.com...EXHAUST/Detail

was 120 bucks. then i bought a vibrant muffler and had it welded on. works perfect. track my car every year. no complaints.

 

i'm running a stainless kit from vrs. fitment wasnt very good and required a lot of extra cutting and welding to make fit the way i wanted which drove up the cost significantly. v-band connection at the header and 2 bolt flange at the muffler, all tig welded.

 

Any pics?

 

car is in the shop for a few weeks. i'll get some when i get it back.

 

I'm running kteller 3" stainless w/ a vibrant ultra quiet resonator as a muffler. fitment was perfect but they supplied a 3" 3 bolt flange and I needed a stock sized 2.5", so I just took it off of my old exhaust.

 

Wow, that big ol' canister is a resonator? Looks like there's a resonator and a muffler in that pic. Looks good installed, but I want to make sure my hangers don't look like that. Looks like your hangers are rusted but you have the stainless kit. So does that mean the stainless piping kits come with mild steel hangers?

 

Yeah, it's a vibrant ultra quiet resonator and the piece further up is another (but different) vibrant resonator. I was going to use a vibrant streetpower stealth muffler but there isn't enough room to get it to sit level; that second resonator is what my friend had laying around at the time so on it went.

I guess you're right about the mild steel hangers that exhaust is pushing 2.5 yrs old and it's seen 3 very snowy/salty winters off dd'ing, it's in about the same shape as every other name brand exhaust I've ever used.

 

V-band flanges are definitely the way to go, imo. They are much lighter than 2 or 3-bolt flanges (which are generally very thick), and make fab and install a little easier since you have some flexibility to rotate the pipe orientation. They don't have a description on their website, but that kit may not even come with hangers.

 

Thanks for the tip on that, I'd seen the, before but never looked into them. Looks like a vband flange kit (just something one I saw on amazon) is about the same as my local exhaust shop sells 2 bolt flanges. So if its lighter and easier to install, then that's the way to go. Do you have recommendations on where to buy the vbands? And about how much I should expect to pay? Are the cheaper generic ones good or is this one of the "you get what you pay for" type situations? Oh, and is a gasket required with a vband?

 

vibrant v-bands are nice in that they have a male-female type design so it's easier to line up but they're spendy. you dont need gaskets with v-bands so you can undo them as many times as you want.

 

I got my first couple off of eBay, but the last one I picked up from mandrel-bends.com, which is where I get my mandrel bent tubing; they're about half the price of the Vibrant ones. The one thing you (or the exhaust shop) has to be careful of is that the flanges can warp slightly when you're welding, so it's best to check for straightness after. With one of the eBay ones, I did have the stud break off from what must have been over-torquing, so in some senses you will get what you pay for.

 

This is a Kteller 2.5" bolt-on kit that I bought back in 2006. It's non-resonated with only a 2.5" Magnaflow muffler at the end.

I had comtemplated moving the muffler under the cabin to emulate the Toyota Celica GT-S's placement, but there wasn't enough room.



The muffler hung too low from the rear bumper, so I had to have my exhaust shop cut out a portion out of the over-the-axle section to move the muffler up to hug the exhaust relief in the bumper. The Kteller kits all seem to have this problem; a 3" kit on a friend's Civic needed the same correction. You can see where the section was cut and rewelded on the descending leg of the hump over the rear LCA.






With flash and muffler in the picture.








In case you can't tell, it's a 1995 DC2 Integra chasis.

 

Last comment.

The 2.5" kit follows the path very well and stays away from the heat shields. The 3" kit has a harder time doing this and contacts the heat shield in one spot.

The 3" kit also hits the B&M shifter I have, but that's probably a little bit of the shifter's fault too because B&M's design has a longer leg below the fulcrum as well as the shortened leg above the fulcrum.

 

Thanks for those pics. The overall fitment does look good minus the part you had to fix obviously.