Megan Racing Downpipe Install

[scottsee]

I dont know how many great things i have heard about these downpipes. from dsmtuner, dsmtalk, AF. everyone seems to accept Megan Racing as the Exception to the law of "you get what you pay for".
Bull shit!! Absolulty wrong. this downpipe is crap. hands down not worth buying unless you plan on drilling out larger holes in the flanges, install a diffrent 02 & custom catback becasue it just dosn't fit on the stock 2g gsx!


Taking the downpipe off wasn'l any work at all. i used a breaker bar and 19mm to bust all the nuts loose. the last one gave me a little difficalty but not for more then 30sec's. it came out clean and in about 30mins. it was my first time ever doing this so it took a while.

i took some pictuers of the stock downpipe next to the Megan Racing Downpipe.

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From this point everything went downhill. first i tryed to mount up the downpipe & gasket to the 02 housing. no go. it wouldnt fit. the o2houng bolts wouldnt fit through the downpipe Flange and the stock downpipe bracket was rubbing aginst the downpipe not letting the downpipe to fit in place. so i broke out my Mac tool Porting bit and made the Flange holes wider (see in photo). then i went to town on the bracket. after about an hour of fileing and grinding it barley fit but was still scratching the Downpipe. ####, so i just took it off. That was a major waste of time and it sucked ass. i had metal shavings allllll over me...

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(####ing bracket)

Once i got the downpipe to fit aginst the 02 housing the gasket that they sent me started coming apart. that was dumb. crappy gaskets. here is a pic of the gasket aginst the 02 housing. looks like there is a little porting that needs to be done!!!

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After i took care of all that shit, it was time to bolt it on, and finish it up. i figured it was all down hill from here and i'd be done in 20 mins. I probably would have if the stock bolts would have fit. the 3in dowpipe is to wide and there wasn't enough room for the nuts to mount the Downpipe the Exhasut Studs. Im going to have to grind the Downpipe to make the nuts fit. I did not want to do that!! at that point i was like "####, what a waist of time, im so close to done and this shit happens. figures". i double checked, and tripple checked. and ended up getting one nut to screw into the stud. but the other one was a lost cause. just not enough room. so i figure i'd just bolt it up really tight and worry about it tomarrow because i just want to be done..

I use a 19mm wrench that took Forever menovering it around and getting it tight. i slide back to put on the Hanger thats welded to the downpipe. Shit, no nut for the stock bolt. its welded to the Body of the downpipe. All right, we'll move on to the home stretch and be done with it. Haha. this is how Megan Racing mounted its flange for the stock 2g GSX. not even close!!

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I ended up taking it back off and puting the stock downpipe back on. i was extreamly supprised with all the shit i had to do to make it fit correctly. i hope anyone who is considering buying a Megan Racing Downpipe thinks twice about it.

 

[unlikely hero]

I would love to see what other people say about this. I too have only heard good things about these downpipes and was planning on buying a 3" one soon. Have other people had these problems?
=Jason-

 

[mitsuclipsegsx]

I would love to see what other people say about this. I too have only heard good things about these downpipes and was planning on buying a 3" one soon. Have other people had these problems?
=Jason-

yup i had same problem didnt fit stock 02 or o2 dump i had to customized cost a little extra

 

[talon_boy69]

I bought a 2g downpipe(megan) for my 1g ( no 1g version at the time) and everything fitted good...Since I already had 3" piping, I cutted it, bought a 2 bolt flange, welded an that was all...

 

[MNGSX]

If you run a 3" catback and use a test pipe it fits fine.

 

[scottsee]

yeah, and if that was the point of this thread i'd commerate you with such a wonderfull observation.

 

[zachakagoat]

Hmm maybe it is just the GSX downpipes because everyone with a GST has NEVER had a problem with them. And my hangers don't look ANYTHING like that they are rods that slide through the hangers not screw into them. Does this downpipe have a Megan Racing label tack welded onto it? If not it may not be an authentic Megan Racing downpipe. Also why didn't you take that stupid bracket off in the first place? No way in hell my downpipe was fitting into that and that bracket also rubbed a whole in my water line

 

[scottsee]

the bracket issue was my fault. i didnt realise that the line on the bottem that connected to it could unbolt from it, so that was my fault. i know better now. it came in the Megan Racing box with the stickers, warrenty card, gaskets & bolts. it does have the Megan badging tacked onto the neck of the downipe.

i can handel the 02housing studs, i can bend them out a little, and the flanges stud holes weren't going in becasue of the angle. all things i can work with. its that Catelimintator flange that doesn't even come close to mounting up to the stock exhasut that pissed me off. i was under the impression it was a dirrect fit.

i think im just venting from beein under my car for 3 hours in the heat holding an warm exhaust with one hand wile tring to make things fit with the other. And having nothing to show for it but one skin'd knuckle and a small burn on my arm.

 

[pboglio]

Sucks that the GSX Megan downpipe doesn't have the flange rotated into the stock orientation. Now that I look at mine in the box, I'm almost sure it won't fit either. Looks to be a GSX issue with their weld fixture. Not good on their part. Let them know about it so they can adjust their fixture for the future, best way to approach it.

If it were a $300 downpipe, I would have sent it back immediately. But at $130 I'd give it a little slack. I could cut that downpipe end off with a hacksaw/chopsaw, rotate it into position, mark it, and send it to my welder to get welded up for $20 and back the same day.

I spent 2 weeks hacking my ENTIRE front end of my car just to fit this POS fitting ADFX FMIC. After all that toiling, I go to hookup the pipes, and they ALL came up short about 7"-8", which required custom welding on one pipe. Why did I put up with it, because it was $700, which at that time was the cheapest FMIC kit on the planet. Welcome to the world of DSM's, where most aftermarket parts don't fit right.

Look at it this way, if you own a DSM long enough and its modified with aftermarket parts, you almost are guaranteed to become a Master fabricator, let alone a Master Mechanic

 

[Agent11br]

Look at it this way, if you own a DSM long enough and its modified with aftermarket parts, you almost are guaranteed to become a Master fabricator, let alone a Master Mechanic

Amen to that

 

[UPGRADED2G]

damn, scottsee, im sorry to see that you ran into so many problems with the downpipe. But as one person said, GST models dont seem to have any fitment issues. Mine went on flawless. I got rid of my neck down on the dp and eliminated the seperate peice that was a neck down for the cat that came with my new catback, all at the same time. In all my dp is just a few inches longer.

contact the seller immediately.

 

[JST2FST]

I also have a megan downpipe, same problem!

I had it welded on, works fine now!

 

[Denji]

Here is what you do to fix that.

Cut it with a hacksaw, use a slip fit 3" exhaust clamp.
Take the hacked off part with flange and bolt it onto catback flange
use the exhaust clamp to reseal the part you cut to the rest of downpipe.
finished! for just 150 for downpipe and 10 bucks for exhaust clamp you make it work!

 

[zachakagoat]

I'm not sure if it would make a difference or not but does Megan make a downpipe for 1g AND 2g GSX? if so you may have gotten the wrong one possibly I'm not sure I havent ever seen under a GSX in person to see if it would be different. Just drive to an exhaust shop and have them put it on they will do it for sure for cheap. Ofcourse it may have to be a shop that doesnt care about the lack of Cat but oh well.

 

[rowlex]

My megan racing downpipe bolted up with absolutly NO problem. I installed it at the same time as i installed my evoIII16g, 2.5" tubular o2, and bosal catback.

Both the megan downpipe and bosal catback necked down really bad so I cut both flanges off where the pipe was still 3" went to an exhaust shop and got a piece of 3" stainless tubing to slip-fit over the catback/downpipe. 10$ and done.

edit: put the bracket back on, i didnt and it caused me an exhaust leak at the manifold/head. w/o the bracket the manifold is supporting the weight of the turbo & downpipe

 

[fatafall]

I have this exact DP in the mail for my 96 AWD. It should be here tuesday, I guess Ill be doing some custom fabrication myself.

 

[Nanan]

Shit like that is why I got all my exhaust shit for slip fit then welded it myself. My friend got a megan pipe for his 97 tsi awd and it was just as messed up, the cat/eliminator flange was at a 90deg angle from the ground(like 40deg off from the factory and just about all other aftermarket flanges). To resolve the issue we just cut off the flange and I re-welded it back on in the proper orientation.

 

[MNGSX]

Um who wants a stock catback anyway?

Rowlex "copied" (I recomended the combo in a review) my rig. It was fast and easy.. Cut off both flanges get a sort piece of 3" ss and two easy seal band type clamps.

 

[blcknspo0ln]

Look at it this way, if you own a DSM long enough and its modified with aftermarket parts, you almost are guaranteed to become a Master fabricator, let alone a Master Mechanic

Agreed. I've ordered things from slowboyracing and sometimes they didn't fit. Am I going to bi*** and moan about it? That would have taken days maybe even weeks to solve. So what did I do? I took a 10 min. drive to ace hardware and resolved my issues.

Sure it's rediculous that they didn't have the flange rotated the proper way, but what do you expect from a cheap downpipe? YES they should fix it and are retards for getting it wrong, and this thread is probably about you looking other DSMers out.. but that's the way of life with ANY modified car; especially with cheap products.

You just have to learn to fix/stretch/bend/hack your way to make everything work well.

 

[funguy]

i was kinda pissed that they made it like that too, i had trouble fitting it to the car and flange didn't line up.

i just took it to a shop and they made the catback for me too, and had no problems.

now i have to somehow take it off, and swap my systems for emissions. BAH

 

[rowlex]

Um who wants a stock catback anyway?

Rowlex "copied" (I recomended the combo in a review) my rig. It was fast and easy.. Cut off both flanges get a sort piece of 3" ss and two easy seal band type clamps.

hell ya i did! and it worked PERFECT (thanks for your help BTW)... i couldnt believe how cheap my ENTIRE 3" completly polished TURBOBACK was. 450$ out the door. most people spend that much on just the catback. And i must add it sounds hot.

I didnt even use any clamps i just slip fitted it together

EDIT: the megan/bosal combo gave me MAD boost creep damn thing can flow some serious air.

EDIT #2: FUNGUY I have to do the exact same thing, lucky I took my stock exhaust off in one piece.

 

[MNGSX]

Just splice a high flow cat in the middle... then go to emissions..

 

[Nanan]

I was able to pass emissions and did so with a better score then I did with my stock setup last time I had to get tested. I bought a cheap downpipe from logic performance a 3" DP, 3" Magnaflow highflow Cat, 3" cat-muff pipe , and 3" twin tip Magnaflow Muff. The whole setup cost me about $450 or so including the 25lb spool of 304 stainless wire and pure Argon gas for my MIG.

 

[Liger]

I also must attest that the megan 3 inch dp for the gsx sucks I got mine the other day, took all my stock dp stuff off, and it fits over the studs but no place to put a nut. And yes, that flange is not rotated properly plus i have like 2.5 inches of a gap between my apexi n1 and the dp I honestly dont know how a company can scew a piece up this badly. Now, i had to untighten some of the studs on my turbo and of course one broke so i have to either run with 3 studs, or take the whole f'en turbo off and take the old one out and put in 4 grade 8 bolts. The one thing that pisses me off the most is engineerings and designers that really screw stuff up, just pure bonehead moves like with this exhaust dp, as well as other dsm flaws.....But what the hell, it's all part of being a dsmer...

 

[IMMORTALSPYDER]

My RNR downpipe had the same problems. It was difficult to get on the o2 housing, the downpipe rubbed on the bottom of the oil pan, and the flange to the cat-eliminator was twisted the wrong way like yours. So what I did was loosened up all the bolts to the exhaust and borrowed a strong friend to help me twist/tug/beat everything into place.