June 24-25, 2006 - The Exhaust (1)
We left the garage on Saturday, June 10 with the downpipes not
connected to the turbos. As much as I didn't want to admit it
our only option
was to mess with the turbo mountings. We snatched up the 7/16"
deep well and ratchet and started loosening the clamps holding the
pipes around the turbo. After several minutes of jockeying the
turbo I finally got the downpipe close enough to the exhaust flange.
I had to loosen the center section and rotate some to get everything
close to lined up. It wasn't a perfect fit, but I could get the clamp on and I figured
that as I tightened the clamp it would pull the two together.
It did. Here's a picture of the adjusted mounting and the
resulting pipe fitment. Like I said, close enough.
Although the exhaust was connected there was still an issue that I
knew we would have to deal with: the length of the O2 sensor wire.
Here's a picture of the passenger side O2 sensor.
Our plan was to modify some MIL eliminators we had laying
around collecting dust because we needed to extend the wire somehow.
After a bit of search we found another solution that probably
involved the same amount of frustration: extending the non-sensing end of the
harness.
Others have found that extending the sensor end, pictured above, has
caused errant O2 sensor readings. Obviously that's not a
good thing and should be avoided. Just to get an idea of how
much length we needed we put the two connectors as close together as
we could get them. Here's how they ended up:
We only needed a few inches and we found that we could get it
without cutting any wires. The stock front O2 sensor location
is much further back in the exhaust system than the location
pictured above. Because of this, the wire is taped to another
wire that is also headed towards the back of the car. We
noticed that if we cut the tape we would be able to separate the two
wires and connect the O2 sensor without a problem. This
technique worked on both sides of the car.
At this point there were only a few remaining open issues with the
exhaust: driver side wastegate, the rear oxygen sensors (where to
tie the wires or how to plug the holes), and how to get the low
hanging exhaust to not hang to so low. We
tackled the driver side wastegate first. Dad was able to bend
the coolant lines out of the way which looked like it would give us
just enough room to install the wastegate.
Although it appeared that there was plenty of room when we got it
into place we noticed that there wasn't much. It took
both of us to tighten the screws/nuts and we even had to use a
cut-off open end wrench. Eventually, though, we were able to get it
tightened-up. After we got the wastegate installed we worked
our way down the exhaust tightening all of the clamps. When we
were finished I got out from underneath the car and walked around to
the rear bumper. The first thing I noticed was the uneven
tailpipes. The driver side was sticking out a good 2 inches or
so further than the passenger side, but the day was drawing to a
close. I'd have to deal with it later.
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