love_mud wrote:do you have a flex joint in it at all ??
I have found that if you dont you can end up cracking the header tubes at the block (usually number one piston or bottom of number two where it meets the collector and is a PITA to reweld properly)
Seesm to occur because the Zuk engine mounts seem to let the motor move quite a bit ... I would recommend that if you dont have a flex joint that you get one in the area between the extractors and the cat convertor ... shold cost round $80 ..
Damn you
love_mud
I did actually think of a flex joint but I figured they only normally run em on east/west motors so I should be ok.
As it turns out I wouldn't have fitted one before the cat anyhow as we ( I say we, but i didn't actually do anything other buy all the bits and take em to my mate the exhaust fitter next door to my work and he bolted, bent and welded it up for me) I mean he had to weld the headers almost directly next to the flange that bolts to the cat (the flange is only about an inch past where you can see the final collecter weld in the bottom photo, where it's painted black)
He didn't even unbolt the cat flange just welded straight to the engine side of it. Then he oxyed off the pipe behind the cat flared it to suit the 2" about a 6" long to the hotdog, then about 12 " to the straight through muffler, them he was at the diff so it was up and out.
As you know or could guess there isn't a great deal of length from firewall to diff on a swb vitara and to fit a cat and two mufflers is a challenge in itself.
One thing maybe in my favour though, not sure if you know, is that I couldn't beleive that my cat was actually bolted, and I don't mean with rubber mounts, actually bolted with a big plate to the body, so I can see why Vitara could crack manifolds and pipes. Because the headers were a little offset to this when he bolted them up he couldn't use the cat mounts, so my cat is swinging in the breeze. He still used the rest of the mounts except the one he had to fab to get it to go out next to the towbar.
I'm no exhaust fitter but I gave it a good rattle after he bolted and welded it all up on the hoist and that exhaust aint goin nowhere. I'm also now remembering that there was an original mount which I think bolted to the top of the engine mount and connected to the manifold, that he re-welded to a tab supplied on the middle of the extractors.
So hopefully I'm all good *fingers crossed*
Sorry to ramble on so much, you just got me thinkin and I'm tryin to re-assure myself.
Thanks for your advice