I went with the dual exhaust, midpipe, ceramic high flow cat, O2 housing/downpipe combo.

It's 4am and we started around 9pm.

This is not a job for those weak of heart, mind and tool. You will need two people. You will need wobbles. You will need extensions. You will need breaker bars and cheaters. You will need mechanics gloves. You will need an O2 sensor socket.

Seriously, this is easily an easy 7 or 8 out of 10 on the difficulty scale.

The cat back and cat replacement are easy as pie. Getting the downpipe off is pretty tough until you figure out what you need to do (you need about 2' of extension). Getting the crossthreaded front O2 sensor was a beating. You need penetrating oil.

Getting the stock O2 housing off the turbo was a HUGE PITA and required taking off the heat shield, strut bar and 3 heat shields on the bottom half of the car. You get to get three bolts from the top, 2 from the bottom and one just by luck (it actually goes the other direction! Save it for last, and turn the whole O2 housing to even get enough room to turn a wrench on it.

Installation was somewhat easier, but harder at the same time since the O2 housing and downpipe are combined. But the O2 housing is much smaller than the stock piece, so there's a bit more room to get around. There's one bolt on the bottom back, that you have to get at through the passenger wheel well (you get to take another heat shield off of the transfer case/transmission to get to this one). You'll need a wobble and another 1-2' of extension to get to it. It had been so long since I'd removed the stock exhaust I forgot how the hangers went on

I wish there was some sort of bracket for the rear O2 sensor. I ended up using zip ties to hook it to the exhaust hanger and the place where it enters the cabin.

I lost a bolt into the engine compartment from the strut bar, so that'll have to be replaced tomorrow.

So, now the important question... how does it feel? Sound? Would I do it again?

Feel:
Definitely a jump in power. Revs come on much quicker. So does 120.

Sound:
You can tell it's not stock It's not super loud like the Buscher with a test pipe that I rode in a couple weeks ago. It sounds really, really good. My wife has a G35 (the golden standard for import exhaust IMO) and it's a raspier deeper version of the G35.

I have a bit of a backfire from the extra fuel (I'm on a stock ECU/tune) when I let off the gas/shift gears. It's kinda neat.

Cruising at 45 in 5th, I can't tell any difference from stock (with the windows up and the stereo at a low level). As soon as you hit the gas, you hear the difference. I've not tested it yet on the freeway for cruising, but at low speeds there's no more drone than stock (yeah!).

Would I do it again?
Yes. I would just budget more time though. I thought it was going to be a quick couple hour thing. FAIL! The exhaust sounds awesome and definitely brings the power.

Things that could be better:
- UR didn't give any instructions, nor do they have any on their site. I'm sure that there is some special way they have figured out how to remove/install this guy. Part of why it took so long is because we were figuring things out as we went ("do we need to take the exhaust manifold and turbo off?" -- DON'T OMG what a PITA).
- Mitsu could have not cross threaded the front O2 sensor. That would have saved me quite a while!
- There needs to be some O2 wire hanger like the stock one (I maybe could use the pipe sheathing? Who knows.


Sorry no pics for now and I didn't take any while I was working. I was pissed off enough by the 6 bolts from hades that I had to remove I would have thrown my camera across the room!

 

You must let me hear your car, I was thinking about one of those systems but I'm very noise picky!

Already have DP and TP from UR would be nice to remove the factory cork.

 

We got out UR dual turboback just before I left for the weekend. I'm excited about the results and not looking forward to the o2install. I will get pics during and after the install.
Kevin

 

sounds nice, waiting for pics also. i want to go this setup too.

 

How-to! How-to?

 

Come to the RiceKillers meet on Monday, come on the cruise on next Saturday (check the South forum), or come to the ER autocross tomorrow at Pennington (in Bedford).

 

Ok I took my car out for a cruise today.

At freeway speeds, there is definitely more noise. And for general driving it is a lot louder.

I'm not complaining, I like it!

And you can definitely hear it at idle now!

 

Congrats on the new system. I am looking at the same myself. Pics would be awesome, and video would be the sex!

 

For me the car sounds great with my exhaust combo at lower speeds. When cruising at 75-80+ range it does start to really get annoying though, but even the stock exhaust started to make itself known due to the vibrations from the engine itself. I think my AMS front motor mount is transferring some of that extra vibration into the cabin at those highway speeds as well.

One idea was to wrap the downpipe with some Heat Wrap to insulate some of the sound from the engine bay and also retain the heat for quicker exhaust flow while helping reduce underhood temps a bit as a bonus. Likely I'll wait until spring when I get into turbo replacement as the sound isn't totally unbearable, just noticeable.

 

Thanks for posting man. I was worried about exactly what you mentioned. Trying to get enough clearance underneath the car worries me about installing the O2 housing DP. Shyte, because of that reason alone I'm thinking about going the lazy route of doing just the DP and catback. I'll definately check your car out Monday.

 

Wow 6 hr install. This is why I prefer to take things like this to my friend's shop and use his tools and one of his lifts. Glad you got to finish it though. Post pics as soon as you can, sound clips are a + as well.

 

Yeah well at least you tried it and were successfull at the install took longer than expected but got it on!!! Did you guys have access to air tools?? prolly would of helped where you couldn't of got a rachet in and being able to turn it enough...? I will be taking on this task shortly and I do have Air tools so wondering if they would help out or just be in the way of themselves?.... lol

 

Yeah, Mitsubishi cross-threaded my rear O2 sensor as well. Pretty upsetting actually, kind of makes you wonder what else they did...

 

Most of the bolts are in very hard to reach spaces, your air tools wont' be able to fit, at least mine didn't. Patience and PB blaster is all you need.

 

glad to hear you got everything installed. So just to clarify, you didn't need to remove the turbo and/or manifold to change out the o2/dp?

Please elaborate on this as this is the part that concerns me the most. From previous posts, it seemed as if something big had to come off in order to reach the 6 bolts on the o2.

Thanks in advance!