i just noticed today after cutting off the flexpipe that it "imploded"


i bought it last year at autozone
i know its not because of too much flex as i have hasport mounts and engine dont move much

 

I just googled it and found this, look at post #16

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...your-flex-pipe

It seems like there is supposed to be an inner support piece.

 

thats just the design

the actual flex pipe is wrapped in the mesh on the outside and inside.
some pipes only have the outside mesh




im all trying to tune my fn car and wondering why im having issues WTF vatozone.

 

lol Vatozone

 

i got a buddy who is a manager at a auto-zone (not that it matters), but he has a honda civic, he gota hole in his flex pipe. so he replaced it with a new auto-zone flex pipe. a few months later the car started to run just a bit funny and started leaking oil from many random seals on the motor. further inspection when he brought it to me was the exact same as your pic. the flex pipes are very cheap and i assume this is because it is exactly that, a cheap flex pipe with no engineering behind it at all. i purchased about 10years ago from honda a new flex pipe from honda directly for my heavy breathing prelude, because i gota hole in my stock one. it was 300 bucks (i was upset and complained but bought it)(not even close to the cheapie auto-zone price) its still on the car and in mint condition. since i have my exhaust apart regularly i know this for a fact. DO NOT BUY CHEAP AUTO-ZONE FLEX PIPE OR THIS MOST LIKELY WILL HAPPEN. there is a reason why they are so cheap compared to the factory replacement. its not worth it to buy junk and many people probably dont know the difference or really get to concerned about the quality of the pipe, but it is really a big deal. now why does it implode instead of explode is a excellent question, my guess is that if you ever messed with braided ss wrap you will see they are very strong with pressure but can be very very very easily pinched or squeezed. im thinking the possessive pressure in your exhaust flowing thru it is actually sucking it in as it passes thru the pipe thus pulling the mesh in. logic says if there pressure then it blows out, but there is more to it than that, the flowing gasses are actually producing vacuum as is exits the pipe. off the subject but not really, see i played with something close to prove this, i once took a piece of small tubing bent a 90 and ran it into a mt dew bottle (vented cap), then run another small straight tube from a air chuck over top of the dew bottle tube and a few inches past, then put both the tubes inside a larger tube, fill the dew bottle with wd-40, hook the air chuck up and squeeze the handle it will pull the wd out of the dew bottle with the pressure because it creates vacuum in the larger tube. there was never pressure applied to the dew bottle and it was below the the large tube so gravity is working against. add a lighter and you got yourself a makeshift flamethrower. i called mine the grill master! please do not try this i only told you this so it might help explain why it implodes rather than explodes.

 

This is very common for this to happen.. I had this happen to me a year ago and could not figure it out for a month i even bought a another motor and swapped it to have the same results but now i got a backup motor.. If you look around you can find double layered flex pipes for a good deal which is what i did..

 

stock honda one is at-least dbl wall, mine is years old and still full size ID. this is a problem with any cheap one so do your homework.