Alright. On my 3.5 motor I have a pair of what appear to be ssautochrome headers, a budget y pipe, stock cat, and greddy sp2 catback. I bought the headers off ebay and was told they were custom for some RWD 3.5 vehicle (project car). They look identical to the ssautochrome headers though and I put them on and they fit fine. I tried to bolt up the y pipe and sure enough, the header outlets dont line up with the Y pipe flanges. I had the front Y pipe piece cut and shortened the half-inch it needed. The y pipe always gave me a buzzing at redline, but its kinda beat to ****, its been bottomed out on and flattened a little bit on the front pipe. On top of that, because there is no hangar on aftermarket y pipes theres NOTHING holding the exhaust from the headers back until the b-pipe hangar.

I think flanges are a crappy way to piece together an exhaust. Ive had alot of exhaust leaks and I just dont like the flat surface to flat surface method.

The cat converter is just old too and needs to go. So what i've planned to do is...
1. buy a new y pipe and hack it to make it fit with the stupid headers
2. cut off the flange on the end of the y pipe
3. buy a universal cat (or maybe just a test pipe)
4. cut off the flange on the b pipe
5. connect everything by somehow overlapping the tubes and clamping them together.

This way, theres no room for leaks, right? No gaskets to blow out. Ill also somehow get a hangar welded up in the Y pipe (or do it myself with some noob skills). I just know my greddy sp2 has a nice tone to it, and my y pipe needs replacing. This might also fix the sag of the B pipe on the sp2. Im trying to kill alot of birds here...with one stone.

wondering if anyone has anything to say about the clamp idea...they do it on american cars ALL the time, i dont see why we are sitting here sandwiching sh*t together.

edit- i just remembered my cat converter has the 02 sensor bung so i'd have to have on welded into whatever i replace the cat with.

 

you shouldn't have any problems w/ piecing together an exhaust the same way everyone else does it so long as you're using gaskets.

and i could be wrong, but i don't know if those headers are any better than stock. if that is the case, use the oem headers and save yourself the trouble of hacking up a new y pipe.

 

what do you mean "using gaskets"?? I'm going to be connecting the pipes with exhaust clamps, no flanges, no gaskets necessary. I think the headers are better than stock. I was told having the 3 individual pipes leading to one collector was better than the stock header design. I dont have my old headers anyway, so thats kinda out of the question...I dont mind cutting a new y pipe really, i'm not sure what y pipe i will be buying though.