I decided that I wanted to install the downpipes yesterday. On the forums, most people say that the install is a major pain-in-the-ass. They said that they would rather pay someone else do it if they ever had to do it again. So, I went into this expecting it to take a while...
Some friends and I grabbed gaskets from AutoZone, ordered pizza, and slowly got started around 1:45pm.
We were pretty lazy throughout the whole process. I ended up getting most of the bolts off, but one in particular was giving us trouble. It was in a really tight spot and we ended up rounding it off. So, why not take a break and light up the hookah?
Starting to get dark now... better get back at it. We ended up having to torch the shit out of it and use an air chisel to snap off the stud/nut.
After we got that out of the way, we still needed to unbolt brackets, v-bands, four O2 sensors, and unhook the whole exhaust from the hangers. We even had to unbolt the steering rack and move it out of the way for more room. Maybe we should have started earlier?
Around 10:00pm we finally got the catted pipes out. I was hoping the car would be buttoned up and back on the road by this time.
That was enough for the night, I decided that we would have to finish the next afternoon. I didn't really take any more pictures of the actually install process, but we finally got them in today!
Also, I don't have a picture of them, but I wet-sanded and polished my exhaust tips since we removed the exhaust. They were black and caked with crap. I always assumed my exhaust was some sort of custom setup but as I cleaned the tips they revealed a "Riss Racing" stamp. Sure enough, this thing has a $1300 3" catback exhaust!
I had a friend take some cell phone videos to capture the exhaust sound inside and outside of the car. Excuse my excitement as I grannyshift up the onramp, I've never lost traction in 3rd like that before. Also, I'm not sure why I sound like a boy going thru puberty right at the beginning of the video...
After this video I put bus lengths on a new Camaro a few times from 50-120mph as he tried messing around. I'll drop in the E85 fuel pump next weekend and reflash the ECU more aggressively. Can't wait to hit up the strip and get her on the dyno again.