Well, koni ***** extraordinaire, mowgli29, and I were installing the wideband O2 and upon looking inside the bung hole...














Awesome
I guess I can retract some of the *****ing about the stock ECU having found this (yeah, there's been a lot of it, I know, it still sucks though )

Initially, it was gonna be temporarily ****** rigged with that cheap, universal, flex **** and clamps b/c Napa was closed, but I had a better idea. I cut out the mesh with mowgli's brand new el cheapo torch and smoothed out the rough flange you can see in the pic (tried yanking it out when it was still on the car, bad idea).







He ground down the edges and apparently has some mad welding skillz


Big thanks to Josh. He saw the mesh in the hole and always does great work.

I didn't even know anyone was foolish enough to produce a flex section with mesh in it.

 

Damn....how many miles till that fail?

 

Idk how long it has been on the car. It looks like a number of years. But it's ridiculous.

 

Let's hope this is an isolated incident with cattman headers. Sorry it happened to you.

 

Damn that S4!T looks crazy always just thought the outside what you see is what you get not a inside bonus!!

 

So there is a thread about this by cattman haha http://forums.maxima.org/general-max...-failures.html
Edit: now link magically works...

But mine didn't bunch up at the rear, its simply contracted to the center. Weird.

 

First of all, "bung hole...."

Secondly, looks like this was a problem in the past too: http://forums.maxima.org/general-max...-failures.html

Lastly, thanks for the kind words Sean. My welding skills are far from developed, but they got the job done....for now. :P

EDIT 1: hahhaha, oops, didn't notice you posted the link right above me! Mine seems to *not* break, though...?
EDIT 2: Just wanted to mention it was nice to work on a Maxima again. I love the Subie, but I still miss the Max!

 

Wow, that was really unfortunate... srry to hear

 

This didn't happen to my OBX headers





























(The front header did crack in half though)

 

Which generation cattman are they?

 

IMO it looks more like the interlock cracked....It definitely doesn't look collapsed....Looks more like a stress crack from bad motor mounts.....IMO! What year were these bought and how long were these headers installed?

 

Just an FYI, I bought my Gen 1 Cattmans USED from I30tMikeD back in December of 2004, they've been on ever since .. and they're fine.

I had 1 mishap with my custom EGR plug in them about 1.5 years ago. I removed the rear header, had it re-welded and threaded, and it's been fine ever since. That wasn't the headers fault, it was the installer of said EGR plug.

 

Is there any need for the mesh inside of the flex pipe anyway? It looks like your custom rig is actually better than the stock setup.

 

How so? The flex was completely intact inside. It simply contracted in the middle. The car has ES mounts and idk how old the headers are. I think they're gen III, though.

 

Hahaha, someone actually said "bung hole"

 

Mine don't look like that and I have the first gen. Did you break it apart or was it broken first. Wouldn't you have noticed the car getting louder if it cracked on its's own.

 

I see where the confusion is

The Ypipe was perfectly intact except for what you see on the inside. I did the damage to the metal inside by yanking on the mesh. The mesh was exactly as you see it. Instead of completely rigging it, we cut it in half to see what happened and remove the mesh.

I've been complaining about poor performance (especially when hot) for a long time now and this is a large portion of it (although it still sucked this afternoon haha and the old car had same issue with new engine and mods). There was very little room for flow with the mesh in an hour glass shape.

 

Just some FYI last night i seen that pep boys has some flex pipes avilable in sizes up to 3" in their new Speed Shop area they are SS pieces and look pretty good in Quality it would just take welding the new one in.

 

Thanks for the info. I'm not sure if this will hold. I've got a hissing leak, now, but not sure where.

 

you should definitely go look into a new, quality replacement peice. what you did is good, but youre still losing performance with that setup and you would benefit with a well designed replacement

 

Order a new flew section From Vibrant Performance and install the turbo interlock it's bulletproof

 

I'm not too concerned with it. Sooner or later it's getting chopped up for a reverse Y for turbo.

 

Hallaluyeh too ya......

 

Werd. As long as it stays intact until then, I see no reason to dump any more time/money into it.