In The Spirit Of Seeing A Problem As An Opportunity...A Great Big Fat 3" Stainless Steel SR-S Exhaust Was Delivered To Replace The Old 2" Stock Unit With A Big Hole In It.

With no experience in the DSM world and having never bought an aftermarket exhaust, I feel like I got kinda lucky in purchasing such a nice quality item.  Not that I didn't do my homework, I did a fair bit of looking around before buying this SR-S system off Amazon.

I found that there are a number of different exhaust systems available on Amazon and at a number of price points.  I found systems anywhere from about $100 up to $450 and figured a full stainless set up at around $250 would be a safe bet.  Then I looked around the web to see if there were any other DSMs sporting this exhaust.  When the SR-S was delivered I found the packaging to be pretty solid.  The box was kinda banged up and partly open at the end, but the exhaust itself was fully wrapped in bubble wrap with extra dense foam around the larger resonator and the muffler itself.  I know it's going on the underside of a car, but it was nice to find that it arrived scratch and dent free.

Growing up in the late 70s / early 80s and being in the BMX scene, I've seen a LOT of beautiful steel welds.  These welds look OK...even good, the welds on the muffler and large resonator look great...the ones on the piping and flanges, just OK...but they all look strong.  The piping is HUGE.  I've never had a turbo charged car before and nothing with a lot of displacement so all the exhaust systems I've dealt with have been 2.5" and smaller.  With a turbo in the exhaust system messing up the downstream scavenging that a smaller diameter pipe would provide, really...you just want as little restriction as possible in getting the gasses to the back of the car.

So, why am I not showing you the exhaust on the car?  Cuz I've been so busy trying to get the old system off...and have been thwarted in the installation of the rear section of the new system.  Oh, and getting that O2 sensor off the old pipe, that's becoming a challenge too.  The rear section (with the muffler) is turning out to be the real problem right now.  Turns out you've either got to jack up the back of the car ridiculously high or drop the rear suspension cross member to get the flange and pipe between the cross member and the underside of the body.  Hopefully I'll cross that bridge this weekend and be able to shoot some AFTER exhaust video to go with the BEFORE video that I've already got in the can.

Stay tuned for another exhaust post soon.  I'll have shots of the install and hopefully the video cut and ready too.  You'll get to see the before and after of the exhaust as well as hear the difference.  After that, dunno...I still need to dye and waterproof the top, maybe that'll be next.  I've also got a great set of wheels to put on but I just tried to pull off one of the wheels on the car and found that they have spline drive lug nuts.  Do I have a spline drive lug nut tool?  Nope.  Hurdles...