Okay I've read on these forums that the stock downpipe is "kinked" as in almost folded on itself kinked. This has been worrying me for some time now. I kept thinking to myself, how could put out a car with an exhaust kink that far upstream?!?!?! Well to make a long story short, I'm cruising ebay looking for parts like always and I'm looking at a $300 OEM ralliart exhaust (only 2104 miles!) and I start looking at the pictures and I don't see no stinking kinks. If you get under your car and you see a kink, something is wrong, period. It's not the smoothest transision from 2-1 I've seen, but I think the kink has been overblown guys. Here's the pic I'm talking about, tell me if you see a kink.

 

What's a kink??? lol!!!

 

Maybe the kink they're referring to is the 2-1 transitional part you see there!?

 

Thats the beautiful reason we have RRM for, to "un-kink" it, make the pipe wider and sexier

...sexier pipe? wtf

 

It's right there in the pic, but hard to see from that angle, the section just before the cat and after the flex pipe. If you looked at another angle (side), you'd see that the pipe is smashed flat on that section, reducing flow. Trust me, it was very obvious when I took out my stock pipe and looked it over.

 

The area circled in red, right?

 

Yup. I just took a pic, gimme a second to resize and post up.

 

word. It's the same on all the lancers (except maybe evo.... god forbid I imply that the evo have a part that's not designed for maximum performance by God )

I know on the "base" lancers, replacing the DP with something higher flowing is detrimental until more power mods are added (beyond intake and header- like intake manifold, timing adjusts, serious fuel mods, etc). It may add 1-2 HP at the top of the RPM band, but it kills the lower end.... you RA guys might have a different expereince. Someone with a welder, some mandrel bends, exhaust flanges (for a dual inlet exhaust) and some time needs to find out

 

It is indeed different for the RA guys. When we put on a properly flowing downpipe, we don't lose any low end, but gain quite a bit (around 10hp) in the high-end.

 

Here you go, it'll give you a better idea. Notice on both ends of the section that the pipe is the full 2.25" size, but in the middle it's squashed down to around 1.75" (guess). This is the problem with the stock DP that the RRM one fixes (besides that pesky cat )

It'd be easier to see with the heat sheild removed, but I'm not that motivated.

 

Okay, now I see what everyone's been talking about. From the way it was described, it sounded like a crushed section. When I say crushed I mean as in crush bend vs mandrel bend in an exhaust. It sounded like the "crush" was the down section where the 2 pipes meet and flow back before the flex pipe. Some described it like it was almost taco'd.
So what we really need is a 2.25'' section between the flex and the cat if we don't want to replace the whole thing right? It seams like that would be easier to have a muffler shop do than spending a lot more for a whole downpipe. What do you guys think?

 

Problem is a muffler shop won't do it, unless you find a shady one, or a buddy. It's illegal for them to touch anything from the cat forward.

I don't know if the added distance before the 2:1 coupler on the RRM pipe makes any difference, but their's looks a ton smoother.

 

Plus, the reason it's crushed it to clear the underbody. They'd have to fab an entire downpipe (and isn't that where your 1st cat is? I think that's why it would be illegal in this case).

 

Ralliart only has the one cat that's shown in the top picture. But yeah, the whole DP must be replaced, which nixes the cat, thus RRM calling it a "race series" downpipe. Not street legal. Though there's no clearance issues with the aftermarket pipe, so that doesn't seem like the reason the stock one is crushed.

 

I believe the proper order for that is.
1 ask them if they will. Get shot down.
2 ask them if they'll make a mandrel bend in the same shape..
3 grab a hacksaw and do what comes naturally.
4 Come back a little bit later and say "I don't know what happened but this section fell off"
5 thank the man very nicely, pay the bill and enjoy.

This may require working a couple different muffler shops against each other and Midas and Meineke don't rate being called a muffler shop imho...