6 Hours later, it's done. Did the job on my back with the 4 corners of the car on rhino ramps (facing the wrong way)

I have one question. The piece on the driver side with the flex connection (first piece to the rear of the car after the cat, before the X pipe), how close to the car is that on yours? On mine, it seems quite close (1/4 - 1/2" i'd guess). The rest has very good clearances.

At first I thought it was too quiet, but after about 40 miles, the volume increased some. Has a very nice deep low rumble inside the car. Never overly loud unless you put your foot into it.

The stock piece came off relatively easy. The 4 bolts at the cats were rusted and corroded to some extent, but still came off. It's quite sad when a car is this old (6 months), and fasteners are already rotting. A friend in the auto repair business says in the old days, they'd easily last for 5-10 years and still look good.

Can't say I notice much increase in power (didn't expect any), but it is nice to finally 'hear' the car.

Btw, exhaust shields are very sharp... had one cut that almost required stiches!@#

 

I gained a respectable amount of hp/tq with it over the Injen SRI on my HR. I would expect you'd gain at least the same with your VHR.

 

Mike, perhaps the gains would be greater with an intake, but for now, other than the exhaust, the rest of the engine/intake is 100% stock.

I'm not at the point yet where I want to mess with the entire system ($$$). I did this on the bike, which involved modifying the airbox, high performance air filter, and exhaust. Also added a PC3 and ignition module. At the top end, gained about 10-12hp, 3-4 ft lb torque at the low-mid, and ~8 ft lb mid-top end. More so, throttle response was much improved and not as laggy. On a bike, these low gains are much more noticeable than on a car. For the costs involved, such small gains are not worth the price of admission for 4 wheels IMO. I think if I do decide to add more, it'll be a substance increase by way of supercharger or turbo.


http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/4307/torquew.png

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/7973/captureehr.png

 

I just checked mine and is about an inch and 1/2 (1.5) clearance at the flex to the heat shield.

 

Ok, as they said, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here 3

I jacked up the rear of the car and crawled under. That little plastic piece that is just above the exhaust appears to be intact/not melted. I did a variety of driving last night, including local/interstate, ~40 miles worth, so it should of gotten plenty hot.

The gap is ~1/4" to 3/8"

This is from the driver side, with the front of the car to the left in the frame.

 

Hmm... interesting. My flex section comes out immediately after the cats, not on the bend as in yours. You can sort of see it in this old pic of mine.



The welds don't look all the good either, did you get this used/tweaked?

 

This was new.

Edit; I think it's just the camera, they didn't look so bad when I put it on, nor when I looked at it this morning prior to taking the pics.

 

Yeah, my flex comes right after the cats like the pic above on the lift.

 

Weird, I guess they changed the location of the flex joints. Mine are right after the cats too.

 

I'm not too worried about the location of the flex, but rather the gap between the pipe and the car body.

 

Try to do a full-throttle quick blip in forward and reverse. That should be enough to move the engine and ultimately the cats and the flex joint. If you don't hear any scraping or grinding, you should be okay. Those pipes don't move that much to begin with anyway.

 

Can you guys that have this on a sedan take some good close up pics facing the tips. I have slightly more than 1/4" gap between them and the body. I installed some spacers where the rear hanger attaches to the body. That helped some, I can squeeze the first joint of my pinky finger inbetween . Ideally, I'd like 1/2" or more. Don't really want to drop the mufflers to start bending hangers if leaving it as is doesn't cause an issue with warping of the plastic.

 

Here you go, Jsolo. No warping or melting -- note the vinyl overlay.



Also, FWIW, the temperature readings i took a while back.
http://m.g35driver.com/forums/showpo...0&postcount=41

 

Mike, you got me curious now.. I'm going to go out there and measure. About the same as yours, after the spacers, ~.270-.300", depending where.

Btw, I think the tips are hotter than 106F. After driving on the hwy for ~12 miles (at times, slightly exceeding the speed limit), ambient temperature outside was 90F, the tips were too hot to touch for more than a sec. I would think 110F or more would be acceptable for skin contact without burning.

I'll keep an eye on it, if it starts to show signs or warping/melting, I'll deal with it then.

What purpose does the vinyl serve?

 

Those temps were taken at a 75degree ambient using a laser thermometer from about 1" distance. We've reached as much as 110 around here during summer since these were installed, no issues whatsoever. By rough math, that would mean the tips likely exceeded 120degrees.

The vinyl is Bluebatmobile's rear valence overlay. I just wanted to mention that as it's not high-temp rated, yet it hasn't melted or warped one bit. The bumper itself is capable of much higher temperature resistance.