^ +100000000000000000000000000

 

post better pics... from those, i don't see any dents or scuffs or scratches

 

Here's my 2 fils

The weld itself is stronger than the metal pieces being welded in most of the cases in life (even in yours). The pix aren't very clear but enough to tell that the failure is NOT in the weld but rather the area around the weld. Had the weld been the weakest link, the metal bar/mount would've came out on it's own without the part I outlined in the pic below:


See, when you scrape over a speed bump, you basically force your pipes up by a few millimeters enough to clear that speed bump. If scraping slowly/smoothly, you should be somewhat fine since that limits the damage to just scratches. However, if done quickly, the car might be even bouncing down which will increase the impact on those exhaust pipes forcing it travel even more at a quicker acceleration too! (Newton's Second Law: Force = Mass * Acceleration!!!!) The force you generated must've been strong enough to cause the failure you showed in that spot which happened to be the weakest link. The weld was strong enough to transmit that force from the chassis to the test pipe, however the test pipe did fail unfortunately since it was designed to flow exhaust gases and not handle scraping or speed bump rapage.

I say it's a driver's fault (not necessarily you, could be valet etc..). I'm sure a scrape that hard would be heard pretty loud and clear for you to miss out on.

Just weld that thing back and drive carefully bro.

 

Are the brackets really needed... all the F.I TP's and HFC's have no brackets


get rid of the brackets

 

Or just install brackets that have some sort of flexibility

 

thanks for all the input, but i have the berk hfcs on right now and i am thinking about getting the long tube headers and an fi cat back.... ill be sending them back to gtm and see what they say, and then eventually probably sell them. Thanks alot guys