Exhaust Alignment Issues - FMII
 

Been installing my used FMII kit. After mounting dp to cat, I noticed my pipe is touching my plastic bumper.

Upon further inspection, I see my exhaust from my cat back, is severely skewed to one side, and I dont know how to get it back over so my exhaust tip wont melt the plastic bumper.

Sorry I couldn't get better pics, the car is just on jack stands and get far enough away for a good perspective. But, as you can see, my cat is touching the metal beam that runs the length of the car and may be hung up on it.

Any thought/ideas?

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The downpipe has elongated holes that allow you to twist the downpipe on the outlet. This will help you align the downpipe/exhaust side to side. A few degrees on one end, makes a few centimeters shift on the other. Leave your exhaust hung, and position the sleeve fit on the downpipe and the slots on the downpipe/outlet juncture to get things aligned with your midpipe. You really don't want to pre-tension this fit.

Yeah, what you want to do here is hang all of the parts with the nuts just barely threaded on far enough that they don't fall off. Wiggle them around til they find the best position, THEN tighten them all.

Note that some of the FM exhaust parts have slip fit connectors in them such that the two ends can be rotated relative to each other. You'll want to wiggle those while the nuts are loose too.

--Ian

Now I know why we attached the dp with the turbo and installed the whole setup at once.

The nuts are welded from the previous owner so I have no way of adjusting the dp :(

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The studs that go into the outlet are user installed on the current FM kits. Looks like the welds are on the DP although I cannot tell for sure. You may have to remove the turbo to get access to grind those welds. If those nuts are welded to the studs, then you should be able to use those to loosen the studs to get the DP rotation you need. Still, seems like a tough position to be in. One of those is pretty hard to access without an extension and a swivel socket.

Stop being a lazy fuck and search for your answer.

Who are you referring to?
I think the OP is fine asking for some advice here, he's in a somewhat unique situation, having bought a used downpipe where the nuts are welded on..

Chill out.

You have a moderator-supplied shame avatar and an average of >1 negative prop per post. Kindly shut the fuck up.

sorry shit got hijacked.

That photo is looking down, right? Not up?

That's interesting because it doesn't look like the current FM downpipe, which is this:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1374457905

This goes on the turbo outlet and has studs on the bottom that the main downpipe attaches to with nuts. The welded nuts in your photo appear to be on the top, however.

How old is the kit? I know that the design of the FM turbo outlet pieces changed a few times before they settled on the current model, and I vaguely recall that the early ones might have been fabricated, rather than cast. I wonder if they welded nuts on the flange and then used bolts coming up from below?

If you get under the car and look up at the bottom side of that flange, what is on that side? It might be bolt heads, in which case you can just loosen those.

How on earth did you get it into the car with the main downpipe already attached to the casting?

--Ian

would you be able to take a die grinder with a cutting disk and cut the welds off of the nut without damaging anything because it looks like just a tac weld from the pic. my other idea is to take a torch and a pry bar and heat and bend the pipe to the position you want it.

Yea, that pic is from the top looking down in the engine bay.

Haven't looked up under, was too busy finishing the install (which I was able to crank it first try last night!! And everything on the Link checkout)

That being said, since I have a Link, you can probably guess how old this kit is. Im thinking pre-2005.

As a temporary band-aid, I just slapped some adhesive backed heat wrap around the outlet of my bumper so I could just get my car up and running now. But, when it cranked last night, it idled smoothly and everything looked great, except a coolant leak from the turbo. CRAP! May have to take the turbo back off. When running we sourced the leak to the water line coming from beneath the turbo. Is there a way to get to this easily without having to rip the turbo back off? Since I bough used, the water and oil lines were attached when shipped. We "checked" them before installed, but I guess we should have taken them off, examined, and put back on....

Take things back off and or apart.

Something isn't lined up and you could be putting extra pressure on parts that wouldn't normally see it. You could end up cracking something. First installs never go perfectly, even my new kit i had to take on and off a few times.

You're absolutely right, but dang it! Was so close to finally getting it on the road.

Better do it right the first time.

How do you recommend doing it? We installed the manifold, turbo, dp as one solid piece. Can i just take dp off, then turbo to see the coolant lines? Im gonna hate to take that manifold back off. Was such a pain

Leave the manifold turbo and turndown together. That's what i found was easiest really. Maybe you'll have to jack up the engine on that side, but that's easy.

Take everything off and figure out what's going on with that turndown. It should be slotted so you can rotate the exhaust ever so slightly to line things up. That's what i had to do on mine.

Yes, the intention with the FM kit design is that the manifold + turbo + outlet casting/turndown are a single unit. They actually ship as a pre-assembled unit if you buy a new kit these days. That set goes on the car together, then you bolt the stainless downpipe onto the bottom of the turndown.

Given the vintage of your kit, I think it's very likely that the welded nuts are just the equivalent of threads in the current-gen castings, and that there are either bolt heads or more nuts (if they're studs rather than bolts) on the bottom. In either case, you do not want to cut them off. :)

You might also want to call FM to clarify details about the kit you have. They're very good about supporting second and third owners of used kits.

--Ian

The stainless part should have slotted holes so you can rotate the exhaust to line things up.

But i HIGHLY doubt FM would put a weldnut on a cast manifold. It looks to be welded only on one side too. That's not FM type quality, even if it is old.

It's hard to tell from the photos, but it doesn't look like the modern cast part to me. The part in the photo has a plain circular flange at the bottom, while the cast part (see FM photo) has a small diameter circular flange with bumps sticking out where the stud holes are. Like I said, I have a vague recollection that the first iteration of the 2-piece downpipe setup used a weld-el fabricated version of the outlet, rather than the later casting. This was around the time of the breakup between FM and BEGI.

The only way there are welded nuts on the top of the cast piece is if someone drilled out the threaded holes on it, welded nuts on, and used longer fasteners. Even if they did, I bet there are bolts coming up from the bottom, not studs threaded into the stainless downpipe flange. Studs would have required filling in the slotted holes on the stainless part and then drilling/tapping to put the studs in.

--Ian