Jeeze, yours had the brace too?

Yeah, I thought it was the older design like jamesr242 posted.

The new design has reinforcement tabs top and bottom. It still has the tab you've shown (on the bottom, not visible in my pic). I bet yours was cracked for a while before it gave way. Mine just cracked and never separated

Ooops. That's what I get for skimming through your post. But it's reassuring that FM added the braces to eliminate future failure in that area (hopefully). Sucks that I have to pay for shipping both ways, but it's better than being SOL.

FWIW, Thermal R&D (the guys who manufactured the exhaust for FM and will do repairs on it) are in Lancaster, CA.

--Ian

No. Continuous product improvement is the name of the game. You can't wait on the sidelines forever because perfect will never come.

It does suck to have to pay shipping (it will only be one way though). I would recommend you give them a deposit ($200 IIRC) and then they advance you a new one. Then you can use the box and packaging to return the old one. I still ended up cutting down their box to save a lot of shipping $$$ because the dimensions are originally above what the post office considers a "very large package"(hey-o!)

I'm not a welder or a structural engineer, but it seems to me that triangular gussets (well, obviously not triangular on the curved part of the muffler) might have worked better than those strut braces.