i was in the last leg of my half-cross country road trip (mid west to east coast) about an hour from my hotel

all of a sudden, my car sounded like crap, like the most horrible ricer exhaust you ever heard. when i let off the gas, i got horrible backfiring sounds

and then the performance.....its like someone stole all my torque. i honestly had to floor it to 6k rpm just to have enough power to make it up a hill, its horrible. and from a stop, i couldn't even get going without flooring it

so i parked in a pharmacy parking lot, and lo and behold, my downpipe straight up fell off my kamikaze header. the bolts were torqued right and i used lock washers. none of the hardware was left at all, its like it disappeared and the downpipe just dropped

of course i was venting straight out my header, which melted the crap out of my radiator fan (looks like someone took a torch to it)

moral of the story: tighten your bolts, use locktight and lock washers. lack of backpressure really sucks, ie really really sucks, and don't be dumb like me, and check your bolts

but the good thing is i will now be putting on my rrm header, stock dp and magnaflow hfc sooner and make sure i locktite everything so this never happens again.

 

That blows but good thing it wasent a really big problem

 

good thing, now u have a better header.

 

Sux to hear that man.. It must have worked its way loose after the long haul. You're gonna like the RRM header and high flow cat with the stock downpipe better. Just the right amount of top end power and low end torque. I have the RRM header, RRM test pipe, and stock dp. The setup is perfect.

 

wow i have never head of that.....did u use the bolt that came with thte header?...maybe they just got real hott and broke?

 

actually i used some bolts i picked up at autozone, i picked up a gasket there and it came with the bolts and lockwashers and nuts. i don't think they broke, i think they just rattled off, although i'm not sure how.........

yeah, it was kinda scary at the time

 

Maybe you could go in for the recall and get new fans now?

 

yeah, i don't think so

i actually have all my recall stuff taken care of, and besides, they take one look at my engine bay and they won't touch it. its pretty obviously modified

new fan is no big deal anyways, i just don't want something like this to happen again

 

wow.. same thing happened to me 4 months before i started working at RRM.

 

I had the same thing. Even the non-heat resistant loctite is amazingly strong. And no backpressure is ballz- I thought someone had put a 3" catback on my car

 

Just remember Loctite brand threadlocker is only good to 300F (blue) Red type Loctite is only good for 150F or something. Don't use that type on exhaust. I'm not using any form of threadlocker and I'm fine with my exhaust components. Just make sure those lock washers are bolted down with a nut nice and tight. The Loctite actually could have made it come off because when it melted, it made the threads slippery and it vibrated the nuts loose.

 

dam, so no locktite will work?

well, right now, i have them torqued on pretty good (had a shop cinch them down with an impact wrench) and i'm using lock washers

i think the problem is the constant heat/cold cycles causes the metal to shrink/expand over and over again which causes a little slack in the bolts. alot of rattles later and bam, no more connection

 

same thing happened to me, fortunately enough, i was able to tighten the bolts to the downpipe before it fell off. i can vouch, it sure sounded like s***. hopefully that rrm is better, im thinking of getting it because i want to go turbo.

 

the cheap threadlocker at Lowes is blue and is a biatch to break loose. I'll continue to use it, thankyouverymuch

My other idea was to buy bolts that were way too long, like 1/2" or more, and drill holes through them for cotter pins. The thread lock was easier.

 

or just weld everything nice and tight together

of course, you'll never be able to get it off, but meh