9094 owner

Well… I’ve been lurking around here like a snipe for a while and figured I would post some hope for the newbs like myself in regards to a full three inch exhaust build. Have no fear, my fellow greenhorns. It’s painless….
First, I have to explain the embarrassing set-up I had prior to this build:

I live in a beautiful town, but there’s not a decent exhaust shop for 100 miles (or so I thought). So I put it in the hands of a man known here as “Sick Rick.” Here’s his beautiful handywork:
(Pay special attention to the hand crafted crush bend at the rice muff)

At this point, I SHOULD tell you that that is NOT a miller light can, we did NOT weld boozed up, and we were NOT wearing sandals, tees and shorts the whole time.

…But I can’t tell you that.

Anyway, after a ton of research and the phrase “3 inches or GFY” coming up in every other search, I went all in for three inches. *Insert joke here*

First step was to get the parts I needed based on research.
3” v-bands (2) – check
Standard size 02 bung for LC-1 – check
Box of “disgarded” 3 inch, random mandrel bends from ebay – check
36” steel strait piping (2) – check
And the plush 5x11x22 Magnaflow
Since I already had the old DP to convert to 3”, and I planned on using a bend as the tail-pipe, I was set.

As I waited for this list of goodness to arrive, I talked a friend of mine into letting me use his new-found skill of welding and his garage. When the Mag arrived, I used an old grassroots I had sitting around as a size reference for how freaking big this damn thing was.

Since I already had a down pipe for the “2.5” inch exhaust, I got a 2.5-->3 inch coupler and made the conversion just south of the bend from the flange…

After the DP was set for the moment, we started the lining up of the ridiculously large muff….

Using the factory hangers, we tack welded the hanger rods in place on the muff one at a time… This took a little finesse, but it’s definitely a plan and re-plan process

I knew it was going to be a close fit, but I was saved by the cross-angle inside the muff to keep the angle of the flow from being too close to 90 degrees

This was the final over-the-stabilizer weld job

I never worked with v-bands before, but little did I know how freakin awesome these things would turn out to be…

Here’s a little comparison of the “Sick Rick” crush bend, three hour, $100 exhaust job compared to the four day slow paced DIY project

Fitting the v-band to the semi-straight pipe runner

9094 owner

We figured that the two most important parts of the system (DP and muff) should go in first, and then do a simple connect the dots job with the runner. Since I live in gods waiting room, for whatever reason there’s no emission testing; Hence, there’s no emissions components

It’s hard to see in these pics, but there’s nearly an inch clearance on all sides of the stabilizer and diff….

This is the finished product of the connect-the-dots job between the DP and muff

y8s

iTrader: (8)

3 inch pipe...

... with cheater bends!

cut those sharp angles out and replace them with REAL bends.

exhibit A:


exhibit B:


xzibit:

9094 owner

When you're right, you're right. However....

Exhibit A: the 90* weld was slightly wider because of the cross angle of the innerds of the muff

Exhibit B: The butt-welds were the product of insufficient bends left during the project (not my proudest planning moment)

Xzibit: was not collaborating on the build

18psi

iTrader: (76)

lol he gave me the same crap when I did my 1st exhaust.

he was right