Well, I finally got the y-pipe in. I spent 4 hours on Saturday underneath my car trying to get the stock pipe off. I got down to one last bolt on the front flange that would not give no matter what. I tried everything. So, I said forget it and I went to a shop that does custom exhaust work this afternoon. It turns out that the bolt's threads were stripped. They ended up cutting the bolt off with a propane torch. After that, the install went pretty smoothly.

I drove home in rush hour traffic so I haven't had a chance to hammer the throttle yet. But, there is definitely a difference in pick up especially just past 3k rpm. I have one or two bees in the exhaust that I need to take care of still. Any suggestions? The overall sound is great though. Nice and deep. Now, if I can only get rid of those bees....

 

BTW, it is a Cattman pipe....cali spec

 

Looks like I need a Y pipe to keep up with you Nauman. Please send me an email where you had your work done.

 

check your mail . Harrison got his installed today also, though I don't know where....

 

Well, I had a nice drive with the y-pipe and I can surely say that it makes a significant difference. It pulls hard after 3k rpm in all gears (I have an auto). Plus, there is no loss of low-end torque at all as far as I can tell. Also, I have found that the tranny actually shifts a little later now. At WOT it used to shift at around 5900 or 6k rpm. But now, it almost always hits 6200 rpm under WOT. The sound is great at WOT. I have the OSCAI/K&N setup, so that really is not noisy, but coupled with the y-pipe, it has a nice growl. I have a slight hissing/buzzing noise still. I shook the y-pipe where it connects to the cat and a lot of the noise went away. I think the flex joint needs to break in a little bit. But, I can live with the very slight noise. With the stereo turned up even a little, you can't even tell. All in all, it was worth it.

 

Glad you are happy with it, UMD_MaxSE. Sounds like a great mod! Now I can't wait to get mine!
Gotta get butt-dyno ready!!!

 

Congrats! It's good to finally see you get that mod since you've been mentioning about it for a month now. Got pics?

 

I didn't take pics during the install, but I guess I can get under my car and do it. I am quite familiar with the underside now

 

I have started to get a little more familiar with the underside of my Max, I am getting ready for the install. Though, the Cattman Y-pipes are on back order, so they won't be shipping until the 5th.

 

make sure you have all the tools if you are going to do the install yourself. Universal joint, extensions, deep sockets, and a 22mm open wrench are all important to have. Be prepared for some strange stuff that you may need to go to a shop for. Also, be ready to get squished up into a lot of strange positions under the car. Good luck, and let us know how it goes

 

I'll let everyone know. It will probably take me all day Saturday, I don't dare try it on a weeknight. Who knows, could be out there till midnight trying to get it on. My only help will be my 3 year old son, hopefully he doesn't drop the car on me when I am working on it. Thanks for the luck, I will need it.

 

whats the point of getting a CM Pipe over a custom job besides the quality of the metal

for some of the guys who do custom exhausts...its all they do for a living so im sure the quality of the work is just as good

 

Pmp-n8a - I'm pretty sure you could easily get a custom job done but it would probably be more expensive if you wanted to keep the stock y-pipe in one piece for when you wanted to trade-in your max. On the other hand I'm sure it would be relatively inexpensive to cut the stock y off right after the flanges attaching it to the manifolds and weld a custom job on - but you really want to avoid doing this. But who knows anybody look into doing this?

 

Hit me with some ballbark figures for:
-parts
-professional install (should I lose my cool)

I really appreciate it. I'm still a newbie, but all the posts I've seen regarding the Y-pipes are encouraging me to dig up the dead presidents I need to pull this one off. This sounds like a must have!

 

-parts:

stillen Y ~$350
Cattman Y ~$400
tools ~$25-$30

-install
depends, but expect to pay maybe a little less than $100.

 

You're not referring to the group deal, are you?

 

Much obliged...

 

no problem