Yesterday we took the exhaust pipe apart for a modification.  In the previous post, I made mention of what the exhaust system looks like and I had the picture on the left showing the SuperTrapp tips.  As you can see, the whole affair ends underneath the trunk floor.  We did this for several reasons, but mainly because it hid the exhaust from sight. However, even though this was with the V6, somehow exhaust “smell” would end up in the cab.  So we had to make a small change.

Since I dropped the whole thing, I thought it would be nice to document the way it looks in its entirety.  First, the following pictures show the flange that is bolted to the flange on the header’s collector.  This is where the bung was welded to hold the O2 sensor.

A copper gasket fits between the two flanges – the one shown above and the one on the header.  Why put the bung and 02 sensor on the exhaust side rather than the header?  The exhaust is much easier to remove than the header.  These four bolts holds the front part and at the rear two tabs fit inside two rubber hangers (see the picture at the very top), so the whole tube “floats”.

Moving along, this is the mid section:

There is a bend right below the O2 sensor, followed by a section that “swells” up a bit.  That is an inline resonator to reduce noise.  At first, on my cousin Jim’s TR4 we ran the exhaust without the resonator – just the SuperTrapp tips – and the thing ended up being way too loud.  The Ecotec has a killer shriek at around 3500 RPM’s when the VVT kicks in.  That is why we used this resonator. Here is another picture showing the area aft of the bend:

This section is between the elbow and resonator.  It looks crushed.  And yes it is.  I am sure questions will come up as to why this is done this way:  we wanted to make sure nothing was below the frame line.  This section of the exhaust had to clear some crossbracing on the frame and the transmision mounts.  Does it restrict things?  Not really.  This is 2.75″ stainless tubing.  Yes, we decided to make the whole thing out of stainless.  The tubing was a bit pricey, but this way we do it one time and not have to worry about it ever.

Finally, the end of the pipe looks like this:

Look close at the picture above.  Several things:  on the mid-left is one of the SuperTrapp ends.  On the top right (standing up) is the tube extension that we added to make the ends stick out a little further back.  And in the center is the tail end of the exhaust with the end flanges cut off.  You can see in the tube extension standing up, the flange is on the end resting on the work table.  Finally, you can see underneath the two split pipes the “hanger” that fits in the rubber donuts mounted on the frame that is used to hang the whole affair.

That is all that holds the pipes in place.  Simple and effective.

The picture above shows the new extension before being welded.  You can see the flange on the left where the SuperTrapp ends are affixed.  These are a bit of a pain to put in place since each has 8 screws, lockwashers and nuts.  Taks a little time but all good things do too.

So what does this all look like on the car?  Take a look:

We added about a foot to both ends of the exhaust.  Now, it sticks past the roll pan of the trunk and is a little more prominent.  We still clear the whole frame since the new frame follows the curve of the body and has a bit of a slope “up” past the diff.  Sure, not everybody is going to like it but then again it is my opinion that matters and I really dig it.

Practically speaking, the result of this small alteration turned out well.  No more scent of eau d’Smoked-T-Rex in the cabin and things are a bit quieter too.  With the exhaust now past the body instead of underneath the trunk, the exhaust note is a bit more muffled.  This is still loud under WOT though and that is the way I like it.