I've been talking to TonyV about his downpipe (for sale on forum), but it's from a 1.8 and i have a 1.6... I searched the forum and saw conflicting reports, some people saying it will fit, some saying it won't. FWIW, Tony says his recollection is that the fit is the same...

Stephanie from Begi says this: The flange on the 1.6: is different, as is the flange angle and placement. You could always buy another downpipe, but expect to take it to an exhaust shop and get it fixed

So -- has anyone used a 1.8 dp on a 1.6 or vice versa? did it take any modification?

 

With a 1.8L cat it should work.

 

I just did this the other way around; a 1.6 dp on a 1.8. Let me tell you, it "works". It's workable, but it still exits about 1" too far forward. I even used my friends old cat so I know it was right.

 

thanks guys.

i only have a 1.6 cat, so unless tony's selling that too i'll probably have to pass..

Stephanie at begi said they have a 'blemished' but workable 1.6 mild steel sgdp that she's willing to sell for $300.. do you think the stainless steel (tony's) is worth another $100 plus the unknown installation headaches?

i'm leaning towards buying it from begi along with a couple other leftover goodies they have.

 

everthing that i've ever bought "blemished" from any company has been almost perfect, i would go for that. They just can't sell it full price with a few small blemishes but i would definitely jump on that

 

Go with Stephanie's offer on the blemished one

 

someone local has a 1.8 cat i can use so i'll probably be getting Tony's DP after all and giving it a shot to install tomorrow.

he seems pretty confident it will fit, and i'm too impatient to wait another week or so for begi's pipe (which is also mild steel no stainless)

i hope it fits or i'll feel like a jackass.

 

ok i'm back to buying tony's DP.. he's a convincing guy what can i say.

Stephanie @ Begi confirmed that the flange at the cat will need to be modified. i will attempt to modify the cat itself so that the DP remains stock in case i want to sell it or upgrade to 3" exhaust.

 

I am currently running a 1.8 with a 1.6 downpipe. The length of the downpipes are different. You can use the 1.8 on your 1.6 but understand that will move your whole cat-back about 1" to 1.5" back towards the rear of the car.

Also you will need a 1.8 cat, but it will bolt up to your current cat-back.

 

I intend to cut off the flange from the 1.6 cat and replace at the right angle and position.

any other reason I need a 1.8 cat?

 

i bought the DP, looks very nice.

after a couple hours of struggling we got the old DP off.. i probably didn't follow correct procedure as we only took off the nuts connecting the dp to the turbo housing, so we had to cut the firewall shelf a little and bang it out of the way to pull out the DP..

The bigger issue now is putting the new DP in.

I tried from below but couldn't maneuver well enough with the car only on jackstands, so we tried from above. Due to the increased diameter, the flex pipe got caught on the studs (one of which broke off during old dp removal btw).

at this point i'm trying to remove the turbo from the intake manifold and got thre of the nuts loosened... i just can't seem to get the bottom-left nut off. It's in a small space, none of my tools can get to it.

anyone know how to get in there?

 

UPDATE: got the new pipe mounted. had to take it apart, it just couldn't be maneuvered into place in one piece.

Couldn't have done it w/o another local miata guy Evan / slacker2223, thanks man!

finally got it mostly back together, but with a couple of questionable things:

1) i only have 3 of the 4 nuts holding the turbo to the manifold
2) one of the studs at the turbo->dp sheared
3) another one is very hard to get back on so i left it off for now.

I intend to take the car to a shop around 8 miles away so that they can fit a little extension on the cat and adjust the flange angle so it mates better.

It's light traffic / no highway, so i can stay out of boost... any danger to driving the car w/o all the studs / nuts in place?