I like it. Probably about 14 solid hours of work for an amateur like me. Tubing came from JC whitless, and the muffler is a Hooker Maximum Flow (straight through absorption type) from Jegs. Total cost not counting mig wire and CO2 was about $120.

I don't think the car is any louder than it was with the stock exhaust and no turbo. It has a nice mellow tone and sounds very good, but not obnoxious, at WOT.

Subjectively it seems like turbo spools much faster, and the car is definitely making more power.



You can see I keep a nice clean shop! It's upside down in the above picture, exit is at the stock location.



A side benefit is that the oval muffler doesn't hang down as low as the stock item, so its not as hard to get a jack underneath.

 

I was gonna say you probably shouldn't weld around your mobil-1, but then i saw you have the prestone antifreeze to put out any fires.

DIY ftw, i should really practice welding and get some skills

 

Very nice! What's next on the welding list? a manual cutout?

 

Hell yeah man, looks good for a first exhaust build, straight and simple.
Ditto on DIY FTW.

 

Looks great, straight and simple for sure.

 

I just redid mine today as well. I used a tuner muffler from ebay. $25 for the muffler, $25 for the piping, and it turned out real well, I will post pics when it gets light out again. Sounds really low and burbly, fiberglass just needs to break in, and then it will sound real well.

 

Did you eliminate the cat in the process? Doesn't look to bad for a DIY. Hope it works well for you!
-Michael-

 

thats pretty nice looking, nice welds.

 

I need a garage

 

all the fab guys are so polite to us DIYers

 

hells yeah, i like this guy, white car like mine, DIY kinda guy like me.. nice simple DIY exhause, great job on the hangers... pretty sweet


oh and messy garage like mine too

 

Sorry, I wasn't tryin to be mean.. At least it wasn't flux cored.. I almost guarantee it will work just as good as something that was TIG'd with stainless, just not quite as attractive, but who really cares, its underneath the car anyway.
-Michael-

 

my first exhaust was part flux cored

 

Oooh. Now that hurts. I'm still suffering along with an old $120 Harbor Freight flux-cored welder.

Grind and Paint, baby. That's the secret.

Seriously though, nice exhaust. The very first welding project I attempted was a cat-back exhaust system. It worked, but let's just say that after about a month I put the stock one back in.

 

Flux core rocks, 10lbs lasts @ least 1 turbo install, and you never run out of gas

 

really nice looking exhaust. for diy, looks really clean. cleaner than most muffler shop work

 

Thanks guys, I didn't really have any ambition of making it pretty, getting the job done is good enough for me.

No comment on the cat question, look at the pictures and judge for yourself.

My biggest problem with welding is the fit up of the pipe sections, I always have oversize gaps that I then have to fill in with weld.

I love what this has done for the car though, it will be interesting to see how the muffler wears in.

Next project will probably be IC pipes.

 

Well it certainly doesn't look like there is room for a cat, but I couldn't see where your DP ended.. Its tuff to get tube to match up perfectly without fairly precision equipment, and using miter cuts instead of bends will cause that to some extent. If you ever need any tubing let me know, and I'll hook you up.
-Michael-

 

I took a couple of the tube style jack stands, drilled holes in the outer stand part and welded nuts to the hole. Then thread a boltn through the nut to use as jam in the center post and it allows for finer adjustments when positioning the exhaust. The tube stands are cheap too.

 

Good job! Horray for DIY