2.5 exhaust home brew

[1st Gen]

Road Race Engineering
Punks Mon- Fri, 8am-5pm



I'd like to find a local supplier but all the parts houses I go to only carry a limited supply of materials.
I need an 18" muffler
some straight pieces
enough material for 3 seems
hangers
flex pipe
I think I'm going to get a resonator too.

[SgtRauksauff]

That obviously had been worked on before! you're missing a flange joint above the rear axle, and another behind the cat, and a resonator. I just made a catback on my 4WD, it turned out to be pretty straightforward, with just a couple of bends. You need to watch for rattling/contact between the pipe and the OEM heatshield under the shifter area, and also there's a fairly narrow area between the body tunnel and one of the bolts for the driveshaft support bearing. I think they put all of those little tiny bends in just to make extra clearance from vibration, but if you use tight motormounts and good hanger mounts, you should be ok.

I say go with the 180, it will be better in the long run for everything (unless you've already got it). Is it a 220V, or a 110V machine?

--sarge

[1st Gen]

I went with the 140 so I can use it on any 110v plug, and also because it has the option for gas. The 180 was 220v and the 125 doesn't have gas. I'm please as punch so far.

As for the system, I'm mostly concerned with the first piece out of the motor. The rest should be fairly easy, I hope.

Edit-As you can see from the pic, I had to twist the muffler until it broke off. It was quite the PITA to get out of there. The one seam there was was were rusted crusty.

[SgtRauksauff]

mine rusted off right at the flange, it was easy-peasy to remove, lol!

[1st Gen]

Some Ebay parts. Yea, I'm still working on it.

[Mazda_Powered]

looking good! I see your little one agrees haha

[1st Gen]

She IS my little helper. I'm still working on how I'm going to get her to weld this all together. Eh, I'll promise her a sippy cup. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Edit-The size of the flanges and the bolts that hold them are just ridiculous. I know it'll be secure

[1st Gen]

Getting closer
My last decision is whether or not to spring for a resignator or just go straight to the muffler.

The metal rods came from Lowe's and were $4 a piece. That's 9 hangers
for $12 bucks. At the parts house, that would have been $50


The muffler came from Baxter and was $87.

The metal disks for my skill saw were $3 a piece.

The straight pieces were expensive by comparison. I found out that Baxter
charges $6 a foot for straight, or I could have bought a 10' piece for
$30. I wish I had known that before I bought all these other pieces.

The angle level was suggested by another member a long time ago for this
type of job so I'm going to see if I can get some use out of it.

The bracket to mount the system to the block came from the j/y and was
cheap.

[Mazda_Powered]

Looking good! A resonator would dramatically improve interior noise reduction, and quiet the exhaust down a bit, depending on the length you purchase. I like them personally, I'll run one on everything but a straight track car lol.

[Ace]

get a resonator. trust me on this one. I have a 2.25 straight to a muffler w/ no cat and its RASPY and ricey as hell.

[SgtRauksauff]

+1 on the resonator. on my wagon, all I've got is a moroso spiral flow at the tail, and it kinda sucks after the novelty has worn off.

--sarge

[bomdoutscort]

I'm running 2 mufflers and the first muffler is my resonator. NOt raspy at all.

[1st Gen]

Okay okay, I'm sold on the resonator. Now it's just brand and size.

[92dx]

Looking good. I use a magnaflow 4" round muffler as my res, and a magnaflow oval for the rear. still raspy @ 3k and goes away around 3500. Sounds amazing except right around there lol. This is a full 2.25 mandrel tru bendz kit, no cat.

this is on my green car btw..

[theredrocket]

Okay okay, I'm sold on the resonator. Now it's just brand and size.

Here's one. It's long, but nice and thin so it'll still fit nicely:

http://www.verociousmotorsports.com/Shop-by-Category/Resonators/Vibrant-Performance-Resonator-18-OAL

The longer the resonator, the more it will quiet the exhaust down/take the rasp out of it.