I decided to strip and paint my stock y-pipe today since i am going to install my RT cat and CT mufflers later tonight. I used rust oleum rust stripper and let it soak for awhile. The I scraped the rust off with steel wool and sand paper. I used high temp flat black paint and applied it with a paint brush. I did all this work without lifting the car at all. This made it extremely fun to do .




I will post more pics of the cat and mufflers installed later and so a sound clip.

 

Not Bad

 

^
+1.

 

i gotta polish mine

 

 

i'll give u 20 miles before it all goes back to metal.

 

that looks nice man.

My Y-Pipe is rusty too

 

looks good! hmm.. Maybe I'll try this later. I'm just lazy.

 

I painted mine about a year ago and have only had to re-spray a couple spots one time (I didn't clean it like I should have). Looks great

 

Well I got the Rt cat installed, but when we went to install my ct mufflers i bought new we realized they sent 2 left mufflers. Makes me sad, I wanted my mufflers on for the meet Saturday. Gotta deal with returning these now. Anyone ever gotten 2 mufflers for the same side before i must have bad luck. Anyway heres a few pics.
here is my rt cat. Used a universal 3 bolt 2.5" gasket for the rear and just used high temp silicone for the front.


here are my CT exhaust, I was sent 2 left mufflers.

 

Here are 2 pics of headers i installed a week ago.

 

Nice.

Phee - Notice any gains? Did you go equal length?

 

Damn I need to put my headers in...lol. Hope the paint holds up Brian, nice subtle touch for the exhaust. Rust isn't a good look, lol.

 

Steel wool + Nevr Dull + weekly cleanings keep it looking fresh. I only know one person that regularly cleans his exhaust, and he even cleans the driveshaft (its a Suburban). The kid has a serious case of OCD.

 

weekly?! holy fack that is a bit much

 

+1

y pipe looks good. that sucks about your mufflers... Ive never heard of anyone getting 2 of the same side before

 

I hope they let me return them otherwise i will be out over $600. Still waiting for them to respond to emails. Already lost money on the shop removing my stock mufflers just to put them back on, and if they do let me return shipping will be a pain. I am assuming it is CT engineerings fault and not the distributor? Have no use for these mufflers as is.

 

dude i clean my comptech muffler almost 2 or 3 times a week... hell even the inside of the tips shine.... i figured if ur gonna pay that much for a muffler then keep it nice

 

Painting the Y pipe cleaned it up good.
Please, tell me your going to clean up thoose flanges before installing those sexy mufflers.

 

ok this kinda goes with this thread. i want a full stainless exhaust. basically the cat back.... i would have one made. not too bad of a price but im afraid they will mess up the y section in the pipe.... any suggestions... and im not going to search me ass off for a comptech one because ive looked and the prices are way to high

 

I dont have any mufflers to install unless I want to ride around with a ct left and stock right. Then I can use the other left as a paperweight.

 

HELL YA!!!! dont do it fight to get a right side one

 

it is hard to find the ct one anyway. I was quoted by a good shop for custom tubing and it definately isnt cheap. You get what you pay for so if the shop is doing it for cheap i wouldnt expect the best.

 

x2, a good exhaust shop will charge you alot. The y-pipe is the biggest issue I see with exhaust shop setups. Thats the area where you can lose quite a bit of power just by how they make it.

What I'd suggest is finding a high quality y pipe online and bring it to them to use. But if you think the CT b-pipe is too expensive, wait until you get a quote from a quality shop

 

When I deleted my mufflers.
I asked the guy about making a Y pipe that deletes the resonater.
I said it must be hard making that section.He said I can make it in 20 minutes flanges and all.He could've been talking out of his ass but,He did my tips and deleted my mufflers in 35minutes.
From cuting old bolts walking across the street to get the right gaskets,making flanges ,welding tips ,welding hangers
The biggest money issue would be on the pipe if it was expensive.
I don't have any idea what pipe stock goes for.

 

Deleting mufflers is no large feat. The y-pipe, which a high quality one looks like this:



is usually expensive and most shops use garbage like this:



which robs power.

Theres also two ways to make an exhaust. You can make it for power, or you can make it for sound. Most people tend to think sound = power. It doesnt. Theres quite a bit of math that needs to go into initially designing an exhaust. Then there is the research and development portion of it. You can't just toss on some pipe and think you've gained alot of power. Im not saying you won't, but it wouldn't be the most power you can extract from it. Properly building an exhaust is quite difficult becuase pipe length, diameter, and bends come into play. Not all motors are built equally either. Header length needs to be tuned properly according to the ingition sequence, as you dont want the exhaust gasses merging onto one another and basically causing a road block, think of a highway that goes from 3 lanes to 2, everyone just kind of merges ontop of one another and the highway slows to a crawl. But thats a much deeper discussion and I need to get ready for work

 

i dont understand how u got 2 of the same mufflers..... did u buy them new? used? oh and i just need a shop to bend the tubing for me. i have friends who make custom turbo manifolds. so all my stainless welds will be clean and smooth. what does removing the resonators do to the exhaust sound?

and for the splitter i have been looking but true nice stainless ones are hard to find. also i cant find the flanges for the cat and the comptechs

 

Yes I bought the mufflers brand new and they sent 2 left ones. I dont know how someone at CT engineering can possibly not tell the difference between a left and right, maybe he puts his left shoe on his right foot. I just hope that I dont get screwed the $600 plus shipping, plus the cost to have my shop remove old mufflers just to find out we had to put em right back on. The drive to and from the shop is over an hour too. I also will need to buy another set of exhaust gaskets etc. I waited over a month before i took the 2nd muffler out of the box and realized I had 2 lefts so I hope i dont have any issues swapping a left for a right.

 

nice pics, making me want to install my exhaust already

 

crushsh!tbends galore.

 

I noticed that earlier too. Crush bends FTL

 

sounds like some similar crap I just went threw with my wheels.
I waited to long and was I stuck.

 

Im hoping that since it was CT Engineering and not some ebay seller they wont screw me but who knows.

 

Still waiting on CT engineering to reply.

 

Have you contacted the distributor? CT never responds to emails. And they rarely answer the phone.

 

yes they say they are still waiting to hear back from ct also. this dsnt sound like it will turn out good. Wonder if they will just sell me a right muffler and I can keep 2 lefts This is making me not like CT that much and thats almost all the parts I have on my car.

 

please dont do this anymore.. do it yourself. all you need is a wrench and some elbow grease.

4020 post

 

I called CT the other day, and somebody answered the phone right away. Just give them a try

 

the bolts were so rusted a wrench would not do the job. You either have to cut or torch them off the wrench has nothing to grab its all rounded from rust.

 

I have been calling and emailing no answers for me yet. Bad customer service IMO.