A little exhaust work while on R&R from Iraq!

[Scuba_Steve]

When I bought the car, I was told it would not pass the very small emissions inspection we have in my portion of Texas due to a small hole in the downpipe. My goal for the car during my 2 week R&R was to fix that problem, and upgrade at the same time.

First things first, I collected the parts.

An Ebay recirculated o2 housing. For the price, these things are beautiful BTW...

A 3" downpipe I bought off another member.

And a 3" Cat, to keep things as legal as possible.

I brought the car on post to Sprockets, our DIY garage. This place is pretty nice. They have a welding shop, they can do machine work, tires, alignments, ac, inspections, and sandblasting amongst a million other things. Plus they have free tool rental with just about anything you can think of. It was like $5 an hour to use a bay with a lift.

When I pulled off my old exhaust, I found that the small hole wasn't so small...

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, plus the fact that I was paying by the hour, I didn't get many pictures. The welder on site seemed very good, though I Don't know much about welding. He did put a hole in one of the welds, but filled it in nicely IMO. For some reason there was a tricky bend. I decided it would be easiest just to cut off the flange on my downpipe and go all welded.

Here my step son gives me a hand with the bolt on the downpipe hanger.

 

[airmail96]

Man I love those on base auto hobby shops. In VA we don't have an onsite welder though :-(.

 

[airmail96]

Man I love those on base auto hobby shops. In VA we don't have an onsite welder though :-(.

 

[kpsc93TSi]

man the onpost shop at FT Lewis,if your not the only person there your lucky if they have the tools you need... we dont have any specalty things like paint, welding, ac or alignment... but they do have he stuff to pull off and put on springs... ive done everyones suspention work that i know.

 

[habitatguy187]

So how do you like the power boost? Did you go with a 3in catback also?

 

[Scuba_Steve]

Yes a megan 3" catback was previously on the car. I didn't notice much more umph, but the car still has some issues to take care of. I guess I'm just lucky here at Ft Hood, they seem to have everything. What do you guys think of the weld quality?

 

[99gst214]

My grandpa owns his own business as a welder for all the farmers in our area. He has done welding and metal fabrication for years. Growing up around that i can say that those welds look really clean from the pix. Maybe a couple spots could have been a little more transitioned, but like you said, there was a couple tricky bends. I have been interested in ordering an o2 housing off of ebay, but just never really knew wut kind of quality they would be. i didnt want to invest in cheap parts, just for them to fail and have to pay for a better qulaity one, which i could have put my money toward to begin with. So from the little time that you have had yours installed what do you think about it?

 

[Kaotic_red]

I have a month and a half before I can go to on RandR. Ill be hitting Qatar though.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

Well from what I can tell, the o2 housing is great. Welds look perfect, everything lined up well... I would assume it is just as good as the $300 housings you see elsewhere.