Cat welded into downpipe Options

[cloqwise]

Ok just a bit of a write up and a bit of moaning about all the crap that came with this job. I bought a decat from epracing.co.uk as i needed the decat quickly before i go went back up to base as i am home at the moment so didnt have much choice but to go thru them. At the sametime i ordered a 3" in/out street racing cat thru a garage that represents magnaflowuk.com but i didnt need to worry about that as it was next day delivery guaranteed. I got the decat and i put it on the car but the decat to exhaust flanges did not line up it was off at an angle a bit and i cudnt get the exhaust to engage a good between the two even with 2 inches of adjustment i had in the exhaust system. So i tacked it on and headed down to the garage where the cat was awaiting to be welded into the decat, whilst i was waiting for the guy to show up i started taking the decat off. The bolts had become super stiff but i managed to get half them out and snap the other 3. As i discovered the bolts epracing had given me were corse thread when you needed fine thread, i should have really checked first or atleast notice when doing them up but everything was done in such a rush it just went over the top of my head.

Anyway when mark turned up (owner of the garage) we started on the construction of the pipe, top guy and had some great toys in his garage, some great cars and even some of the tools and machines are worth going to see ha. Construction went quite well to be honest, he extended the length of the pipe and adjusted the angle of the flange since we cut the decat in half.

This is what it looked like, i was very happy with it and it fit and sat very well in the car. However after that i was outsite most the day drilling out bolts, trust me this was hurrendous was certainly something i dont want to go thru again i had enough crap taking the standard cat off. I got 2 out but one i just cudn't get the drill straight on so the pipe is being ran with 5 bolts in but im getting away with it for the short term as the leak check was ok but i will take the turbo out and get the bolt out when im back from afghan. Anyway i decided to re-tap the holes as some threads were screwed i did half of them and then surprise surprise the damn tap breaks, luckily it broke in the recess that you dont use with the 6 stud flanges which makes me wonder why i was re-tapping that hole at all.

P*ssed off with them bolts big time that epracing.co.uk sent me, just annoys me that something should have taken a couple of hours took all day and even then you could say i didn't finish as i had to leave one snapped bolt in but hey thats GTFOUR'S for you. If anyone needs help work doing on their car i recommend going to see mark he is a top bloke and enjoys making things up more than anything his garage is electromec services(dont be fooled by the name they are mechanical aswell), chandlers ford, southampton, UK, 02380 460007.

[slow_yota]

ehh....ok.