Hey all,

I recently got a DC Sports 4-2-1 one-piece header in the junkyard. it's in good shape except the downstream flange has been hacked off. some extra pipe was welded on. the guy had a piece of flex-pipe (the good "stays flexible" stuff, not the cheap 3-dollar "bend it once and it rusts into place" stuff) replacing the cat, and instead of flanges he just had U-bolt clamps holding it all together.

Here's my dilema... The amount of pipe welded on is too much for me to clamp on the flange that meets the cat. teh whole assembly would be too long. UI can't chop off any pipe since it's so close to the O2 bung.. just not enough room. also, the ghetto welding job he had done to weld on teh extra length of pipe left a ton of huge beads on the seam so I'm really restricted in the room I have to work with.

I could take it to a muffler shop to have them mount the headers and weld on the flange that mates with the cat. except this is a 1-piece dealie and they'd have to drop the front crossmember to get them on. Labor = $$$. this header cost me 10 bucks, so I want to keep this cheap. so right now it's down to this: how important is exhaust system flexibility? I know I'm gonna end up getting rid of the cat at least for now. can I get away with putting in a straight pipe, or do I really need somne of that flexible pipe? sorry for the long post. I appreciate it.

PS - will killing the cat make my car sound like crap?


Modified by IggDawg at 3:09 PM 11/11/2003

 

you actually ran into a nice piece of hardware for real cheap. i would just install it on yourself as is with the flex coupler, drive it over (as loud as it will be) to a muffler shop and then have them weld a straight thru from the flex coupler. add a resonator or two and a decent muffler to keep the noise down, but this exact setup ive seen make the most power. dont worry about sound running without a cat, it doesnt sound bad, just a bit lower and a bit louder all things considered. really wouldnt be able to tell if you had a cat or not.

 

Yeah, I was psyched when I opened the hood of a riced out Accord in the junkyard and saw some brand name hardware in there. the yard guys don't know much more than how to take engines out of cars. they don't know aftermarket from stock :D .

anyways, I'll try what you're saying. It sounds like a good plan. for now, $$$ is king, so I'll see what I can get for just a couple bucks. For now I just want the flex pipe secured and sealed in place. I can get resonators and a muffler a few months down the road. if the sound isn't that much louder, I'm not gonna worry about it for now.

-Igg

 

well I got it on. I managed to hook up an old cat I had kicking around. I chopped off the front flange and used an adapter to hook it up to the pipe. so it should be good. there's no exhaust pipe flex anymore, but hopefully the hangers will absorb enough of the engine movement. now if I had solid mounts..... but that's another story for another day.

all in all I'm happy. total cost of header + install: 20 bucks. total install time: about 3-4 hours. not too shabby.