my dad's old trick was to liberally spray wd40 on exhaust bolts the night before you do the exhaust. then come morning, it has had time to soak in and loosten up for you. works every time.

 

I ordered a high flow cat today. For someone with only 2 jackstands, better to go from the front or back to install the TP/HFC? I am guessing the front from pictures I have seen.

 

i just installed my AMS cat-back and test pipe last night.

luckily my buddy was around to help me.. when it came to the bolts on the cat i warned him about the situation many had... He said ok lets see what we got.. After a few tries nothing happened. So he tried another method he called "the Okie" way of doing things.

He used the 14mm wrench and then used another wrench as a handle. He took the circle part of the other wrench (sorry forgot what its called) and somehow "hung" it on the 14mm wrench part..

After 2 tries the bolts just came right off.. i coudlnt believe it... it was pretty impressive

this is without any wd40 or anything... hope this helps

 

Another trick is to use a metal pipe or something simliar. I use half of my floor jacks handle, put it over the wrench, gives you tons of torque with little effort.

 

i got a lancer 143 hp from cali , i live in jersey thoug of course when i bought it i didnt know about the difference with the federal , so whatever , i running a aftermarkert catback , no cat converter , instead of dat i put a resonator and i will go with the gready test pipe soon , now , let me tell u , before doing all this , i went straight pipe to the oem catback and i didnt see any changes in noise or performance , cuz the regular muffler is way too restricted , now with these lil mods i did , there's def a bigg increase in noise and perf , i didnt dyno it just i dont feel like paying to dyno a car dats less than 300 hp , but i runs faster and is way more loose ,m so as soon as u change that catback ull see the diff

 

I also used the PB blaster/breaker bar combo while the exhaust was still moderately hot and the bolts came right out. Also an O2 sensor socket makes life easier.

 

undo your cat (4 bolts) and replace it. REALLY? not hard to figure out

 

When I did my GSR...it was tough! I just put a race pipe on my wifes MR last night and it was much easier since I learned from my first experience. Along with WD40, I unbolted the metal skip plate by the front cat bolts (protects a few metal lines) and I was able to get much better leverage! Took about 2 minutes to remove the plate and another 2 minutes to remove the bolts. Really made the job much easier!

 

WD40 or some other kind of penetrating spray is a must. Other than that...pretty straight forward.

 

WD40 is somewhat weak, PB Blaster soaked the night before helps quite a bit. Drive the car to heat the cat/bolts up or use a torch and then spray some more PB Blaster on them. Use a breaker bar with 6 sided sockets and add on a cheater bar/pipe if need be. Impact gun should make short work of them as well. Use new SS bolts and antisieze so that you can easily remove them in the future.

Installing a test pipe is basically "bolt removal 101".

 

While the car was still hot I PB blasted the bolts... drove the car all day... PB blasted some more before working on it and they came off like butter!!!