The exhaust on the Eclipse is basically done, except for one last piece - the O2 sensor housing.
Since the factory housing is pretty restrictive, we had two choices, port it or buy a replacement. I
decided to buy a replacement from
Victory Performance.
They build their housings using stainless steel with 1/2 inch flanges. You can order them
with the standard wastegate flow (like the stock housing) or with a dump tube that vents the wastegate
gases to the atmosphere. We chose the standard housing in hopes to keep the car smog-legal. Of course,
even that may not help us out here in California. Here's how we did the installation...
Parts Installed
Stainless steel O2 sensor housing from
Victory Performance.
Step 1
Remove the upper and lower heat shields on the exhaust manifold and O2 sensor housing. You may want to spray
some Liquid Wrench to ease the process. Oh yeah, let us start out by saying that some of the bolts are
a bit@h to get to with a wrench. Don't be alarmed by our foul language, as you'll likely sound like a
trucker yourself trying to work that lower heat shield out of the engine bay. You may need to skip to
step 3 and unbolt the downpipe te get it out. If you do, be sure to cover it up to prevent debris and bolts from falling
in.
Step 2
Remove the O2 sensor with an O2 sensor socket. Begin work on removing the 4 nuts/bolts that hold the housing
to the turbo. Get out that Liquid Wrench again! Let it soak a while in hopes that you'll be able to get
the bolts out without breaking them. We were fortunate enough not to break any. We also chose to disconnect
the battery and the alternator lead for better access (and to prevent shocking the hell
out of ourselves).
Step 3
Remove the bolts that hold the downpipe to the O2 sensor housing. You may need a deep socket for this.
There should only be two bolts (unless you still have the stock downpipe - which should be changed before
installing an O2 sensor housing or at the same time). Pull the housing out of the car.
Step 4
Bolt the new housing up to the turbo. Once again, you'll notice that it will be tough reaching at
least 2 of the 4 bolts with a wrench. This took us a while, since there wasn't much room to turn the
wrench. Bolt the downpipe back up to the housing. Reinstall the O2 sensor. Try the best you can to tighten everything to torque
specs. Replace the heat shields. You'll notice that the new housing doesn't have connection points for
the lower heatshield. We simply used the 2 connections on the turbo.
We trimmed our lower heat shield down a little to make it easier to install and
prevent any rattling.
Step 5
Here's the 2 units side by side. The stainless piece looks so good, I almost didn't want to install it!
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O2 Sensor Housing Install
