Bitch and moan ....
 

I'm just venting ...

I'm pissed off with the fit of the items I've recently installed from BEGI.

Heatshield: Looks like sex expressed in aluminum, but didn't fit. Had to massage it with a hammer to get clearance around the heat hoses.

Manifold: Barely enough room to thread a nut on the exhaust stud, let alone get a wrench on it. Had to make a special service tool to get this one tightened down.

Downpipe: It was short, but that could be my test pipe. Luckily there is enough slop in the exhaust system to make it fit. There is no way in hell of tightening the bolt that holds the two sections together while on the car. The bolt supplied was too long as well. O2 bung in a spot that would make it impossible to use, 2nd bung missing (This could have been due to a communication issue). Takes a lot of messing about to get the DP to fit properly with out hitting either the tunnel or the transmission.

I hear everyone GUSH about BEGI and how great they are, but their QC sucks. These parts should be off the shelf for BEGI and are not in anyway custom at all. I'm sure that the good folks at BEGI would work with me to fix the problem, but that would require sending the stuff back and forth a couple of times between Texas and Alberta and not driving my car again until there's snow on the ground.

I'm just pissed because I dropped a ratchet with about 18" worth of extensions and a swivel and took it right in the lip.

I would like to state that I don't understand why the have the 2nd o2 bung inverted when everyone knows o2 sensors aren't supposed to go below parallel for proper functioning and it will probably get ripped off on some shit I run over on the track.

Every time I read about bolt up fitment issues, there's usually a reply stating that the majority of exhaust bolts need to be loosened to get a good fit. Is that true?

I think the assumption on the wb O2 sensor is that it will only be installed for tuning. This might come from the day when wb02s were way expensive, and you only had one installed while on the dyno. :dunno:

I'm sorry to hear of your troubles Jason. But it sounds like it's all bolted up now. Getting to some of the bolts on my greddy set up was no happy task either.


I specifically asked BEGi to include bungs at both 12 and 6 o'clock on mine. Yes, I run a full time wideband, so when I go to the dyno I don't *need* theirs. However the dyno's data acquisition is always easier to deal with between pulls than messing with the laptop. Plus I like to see that my WB is on track with the uber $$$ system at the dyno (and it is).

Are you following the instructions on the specific order to install components in? I believe you need to loosely install everything, then DP-CAT followed by turbo-mani followed by turbo-DP. Not in that order (or whatever the correct order is) won't fit.

Also, for the mani, the middle bottom nut is something that I still screw up. You need to put that one on first.

My Begi-SS DP was problem-free as soon as I read the instructions. The longbolt I use a small 11mm(?) open end wrench on the nut once I get it threaded on... and a I need a 12" 1/4" drive extension to get the bolt itself. I put the bolt in from the bottom. Once the bolt starts to get tight, I bang on the DP lightly with a rubber mallet to help it fully seat tight... DON'T put increasing pressure on the bolt to pull the 2 pieces together. They'll "tap" together and you'll get a few more easy turns on the nut/bolt as they tighten up again.

The order of the nuts on the manifold don't matter. A regular wrench will not fit between the runners. Like I said, QC sucks. Would it be hard for someone to measure between the runners to make sure a wrench will actually fit before sending it out? 2 minutes with a die grinder and problem would be solved. Next time I have it out of the car I'll be doing just that.

The o2 bung on the DP is in a place where you couldn't physically get an o2 sensor in, since it would point right into the car. Luckily I didn't need the upper bung, and installed one myself in my test pipe.

Sam I did just what you are describing but I can't get a socket on the long bolt, and had to grind an 11mm wrench down to even get it on the bolt. And then I had to cut the wrench down and make it a shorty to be able to turn it.

If your counting that's two wrenches I had to modify to install this engineered bit of kit. Getting the greddy manifold and dp installed was a breeze compared to the begi stuff.

It's really just disappointing that on three separate parts there are fit/install issues. When I was deciding to purchase BEGI or FM, BEGI's consistency of fit was a major misgiving I had. Should have listened to my gut and gone FM ... but my impatience won out. Dammit I have no one to blame but myself.

If you had a test pipe with the factory exhaust then the DP should not be to long or too short.

When I got my first Begi S, it hit the transmission and the lower bolt on the turbo exhaust flange couldn't be threaded onto the stud because the pipe was too close to it.

After I sent them pics, they sent me a new pipe that fit like a glove. BUT... that also held me up for 2 weeks. QC is not that hard to do. Stephanie told us that they make very little profit on downpipes because of the costs that go into making them. If thats true then you would think they would try pretty hard to avoid paying shipping back on a defective pipe and shipping out for a new one.

+1 Sam...QC should be a bit higher as to not eat it up the ass on shipping charges and bad reps.

All I can say right now is at least you got your parts. I was shipped a divorced gases downpipe that was riddled with problems: o2 sensor bungs at 6 o'clock, connector bolt is almost impossible to use as it is in the curve of the pipe, and after pipe is installed, it is angled and causes one of the hangers further back to rattle off of one of the bars in the rear. And it was installed according to their directions. I contacted them in the end of January about it, and after emailing Stephanie, we came to an agreement as to how it needed to be made in order to be correct. But after waiting and another follow-up email, I was told towards the end of March that my replacement was being made. Waited. Then after contacting them again at the end of April for an update, I was told that the downpipes were having some changes made to them, and mine would be done within the next week or so. Guess what? After a total of 4 months, I'm still waiting.
I'm mainly upset because I have already paid for my downpipe, but the people that are ordering downpipes now are still getting priority. I'm pretty patient, and it'll be nice to hopefully recieve a downpipe that has been revised and should fit and work without issues, but this has prevented me from tackling other projects that were to follow, especially tuning the car via WB. And after reading this thread, and some of the others that have preceded it, I'm a lot more hesitant to consider ordering from them again.

^ simple answer really. They dont bother testing the pipes after they design them. They send one out to a customer, have them try and install it, if it doesnt install then they revise their design. Pretty much using the client as a guinea pig.

If people didnt call with problems and they sent out pipes, everyone would have a busted one.

This will sound cheesy, but we have run into the same problem when using cheap, Chinese tools. Our Craftsman and Cornwell tools work fine, but the cheap ones are too fat and will not work.

Please send me photos. I know this is an older downpipe so things may have changed since then.. but please send me the photos.

One of the holes in the turbine flange is wider to make it easier to install. But it can allow for too much movement of the pipe once it is heated up. So I would suggest that you find the spot where it does not hit, then weld on washers to the flange so that it cannot move or rotate. If that is not appealing, I have a motor mount spacer you can use that will give you about another 1/4" of clearance.

We do test all the pipes we can in house. However, we do not always have a specific system installed on a car to test it.
Stephanie

This is going to sound cheesy but... when I got my first the begi S downpipe from you guys my car was bone stock.

It should have fit from the very first time.

Now dont get me wrong, the service I got was impeccable, and I really enjoyed talking to corky about my problems. But I would rather trade that in for a downpipe that worked the first time around but whatever, whats done is done. Either way, they shouldnt have been problems in the first place if you guys do test the stuff in house.

There will come a time, like now, when people will start to wonder "wtf is going on". This isnt really a custom part, so they should all be fitting right.

My pipe wasnt the only one that came messed up, Pauls was the same exact way as mine. Two identical mistakes on the same product? Cmon now.

Not trying to sound like a dick, just worried about you.

I tried a craftsman, mastercraft maximum (about on par with craftsman) and a gear wrench. None fit, with the open or the boxed end. The wrench I modified was a cheap Chinese unit. I honestly don't think there is any reason that the tolerances are that close that you shouldn't be able to get the box end of a gear wrench in there.

Older? I bought this Downpipe in Feb 08. The DP is already on the car. It fits, but like I said compared to my other DP with the same exhaust and testpipe it was about 1/2-3/4" too short. Luckily there is enough movement in the exhaust system to make up for it.

Wouldn't the other four non-slotted holes fix it's position?

Like I said, it fits. And if it becomes a problem I'll weld an exhaust hanger just after the flex section and that should help. But for such a common part I don't think I should have to do this should I?


I'm just disappointed things don't fit better. With the reputation that BEGI has fit should be much better than it is. I'm obviously not an isolated case, and I think you guys need to go back and look at your fabrication process with respect to consistency of fit.

Thanks for the calm response.

This might be a little off, but when i installed my greddy DP to the test pipe. I had to loosen up the bolts on the DP to get the flanges to match. Then i tighten the Test pipe first then the DP.

well... lets see how my begi s will fit. its going out on monday.

+1 on following directions on that one...I had a helluva time until I went back and "read" the directions...IN ORDER:bang: