Hey I've been under the hood and under the car for the past 7 hours straight.. What I am doing is removing my rear exhaust manifld(on my 2002) and I am swapping it with a 2000 fed spec exhaust manifold. I am doing this so I can put on my 5th gen stillen Y-pipe( cali-spec style).


Now for what is done and what still needs to be done. I started off by removing my intake manifold, this was easy. Next I attempted to remove my heat shield. This did not go as planned by any means. I stripped 2 of the 3 bolts. I had to use a dremel in a rediculous place to remove them. It took me over a hour to cut the damn bolt heads off. After that I had to bring out the drill and drill through what was left. Finaly the heat shiled came loose! This was not the end of this heatshiled by any means though. I could not get the heat shield off the car becuase it was designed in such a fasion that it could not fit out of the tiny space that was there. So I said screw it, I will try to get the damn thing out of the way later.

Next I jacked the car up and went under. I removed the cheesy 2002 Y-pipe and 1 o2 sensor. This was pretty easy to do until I tried to actually pull it off of the car. Another heat shield was getting stuck while I was trying to pull it off. After some bending and cursing I managed to break it loose.

Now I still had to get the header heat shield off the car. I ended up having to remove two other small heatshilds to break it free. I also had to bend the damn thing to make it finaly come off the car. Victory was finaly mine and I celebrted by smashing the dman thing repeatedly into a rock while cursing

Now the worst was still yet to come.. I still had to get the damn rear manifold off the car. It was no easy task getting to and then breaking the bolts free of it. Just a few minutes ago I finsished loosening all 6 of these bolts from hell. While doing this I noticed the 2002 has no EGR valve on the manifold. It appears to now be on the rear lower intake manifold. (engine swap guyswill need to know this)

It's now almost 7:30 PM and I have to try to find a bolt to plug my EGR valve hole on my 2000 header. I also busted my only 12 inch extension so I need to get that too and also a new bolt and nut for the one I busted off of my cat.

If you know whats good for you dont even want to think about trying to do this your self becuase it is a mission from hell! I have atleast 50 wounds on my hands and for arms from it so far.


Pics will be up later of the project. Hopefully I will have the car up and running tomarrow and then in a few days I will get the car dynoed.

Wish me luck!

 

Damn, I must say you are crazy! Hopefully you will get some good gains out of it though. goodluck with the project.

 

dayummm ewok I hope this is all worth it for ya. I would have to be out of my wits to attempt something like this. I hope you get at least 15 whp for all the trouble and hope the install of the new parts is much easier for ya. GOOD LUCK MAN

 

emax, you are one hellova trooper. i hope all goes well.

 

Sheee! This WAS a perfectly running NEW car! Good luck man. I hope it works out(for you sanity's sake!)

 

good luck, I spend almost two hours tryin to loosen a damn oil filter stuck in my car it was hell but yr task is even harder (its still stuck there even with the oil filter wrench I have)

 

Wow that's a lot of work, I hope it's all worth it. That Y-pipe better add the conventional 10whp if not more!
-Cyrus

 

hope everything will become easier for you!!

 

Yeah good luck! Hopefully you will get a good hp increase from this and it will have been all worth while!

 

damn..!!



crazy man.. crazy!!

 

Thanks for the support guys. I just drove 60 miles trying to find a bolt that will plug up my EGR port but I had no luck I did manage to get a bolt and nut to replace the one I busted on my cat, that and a new extension and a 3/8's TQ wrench.

So it looks like tomarrow I am going to have to take my 2000 manifold in to get the EGR port welded shut. I hope I can find a place to do it on the spot since I have a limted amount of time with a car.

I'm gonna up-load the pics in a few and I will post them for you all to see.

 

talk about a man on a misson.. good job!!!


hope you see lots of power from this

 

This reminds me of the "48 hour supercharger install marathon"!

I wonder if this is payback for that?!

 

Emax - Way to go! I think it'll be well worth it!

 

All right guys, I have only one bolt left to just un-screw and then the wholemanifold and precat will fall right off. I'm going to wait until day light to finish unscrewing it. After that there should only be a few hours of fairly easy work to do. I just need to find a welder or a huge bolt tomarrow and I will be all set! BTW I'm having a little trouble figuring out how to up-load my pics since my computer got reformated.


And thanks again for the support guys

 

Holy Moly dude!!~ That is crazy.., and awesome.. You got some giant ***** of steel emax.

When I did my springs, I worked 11 straight hours!! Yes, 11 straight hours. But that is nothing compared to what you're going through.

 

There's always a way of evening out, something snags and an easy project because hard and hard project becomes impossible.. especially without the right equipment.

good luck and way to pioneer.

 

send me the pics if you want E, luke@vqpower.com

 

Thanks for the offer, the trouble is I can not get the pics on my computer (from my digi cam). I will figure it out tomarrow probably unless I get lucky tonight.

 

ohhhhh k

 

emax, u are freakin nuts man, goodluck your gonna need it. and to weld that egr plate shut, try lookin around for a parts werehouse. they almost always have a machine shop around the back which should take no more then 5min to weld. have fun.

 

Emax, quick question.

I thought the rear manifold will not come out without raising the engine a bit? That is what I heard and saw alot of people talking about in other threads I searched on.

Are you saying you can do it simply? well not simply but it can be removed? Because I am in the process then of buying 2k1 headers for my car.

Dixit

 

good stuff. just dont **** up

 

mybad if i got this wrong man, but isnt your ride a 2k1? also i was thinkin of removing my headers and just porting them out, but as Don learned onle a minimal ammount of hp was gained, like 0.2 was it? so i didnt even bother. if i go S/C ill probably go 4 it but its just not worth the time right now, too busy. and dude seriously goodluck with that dealership crap.

 

its a 2k2 =)..hmm let us know..for gods sake..hopefully its a 5+whp gain..

 

isnt WSP going to be releasing a 2k2 ypipe very shortly

 

When I brought my car to the mechanics to have my headers put on my 95 max the 2 mechanics there tilted the engine backwerds about 90 deg. I on the other hand removed the intake manifold and then removed all 6 bolts from on top of the engine bay. Tilting the engine is not truely nescesary but it may make things a lot easier to get too.

I just dropped my 2000 manifold off down the street at a local welder. I am going to pick it up in a few minutes

mitch33x, WSP is not making a true Y-pipe by any means. There Y-pipe will not even remove any of the precats. Thats why I am taking matters into my own hands.

chinaonnitrous1, I'm sure I will get atleast 5 HP, I expect atleast 10 though

 

Good Luck Ole buddy......You are our hero!!!



I mean guinapig....

 

ethan: Winner of the 2002 IronMAX award for tireless efforts to make Maximas better.






For those who would rather argue with the "powers that be" here: look at ethan, you can see what is possible if you concentrated your energies on contributing rather than leeching and complaining.

 

Dyno: +3 hp

Good luck Ewok!

 

Don't even say that!



Thank you Bill!

Padsy,


Update: I picked up my 2000 header up from the welder and it looks great. I then finsished removing my oem header and I just put on my 2000 header. Now I just have to TQ the bolts to spec and then I can finaly install my Y-pipe. After that I just have to stick my manifold back n and then pray I have no air leaks!

 

 

A better flowing exhaust system wont hurt your car but if indeed you are sucessful there will be other 2k2 owners jumping right on this!!!!

 

Sure.....

Just like the 2K-2K1 Y-Pipe that's been "coming soon" for 1-1/2 yrs..

 

Wow dude, you are a machine!!!

I hope you dyno better than your last header....

 

He's already got the Greddy Catback.

 

I had a B-pipe on order with them and finally canceled it. Just got tired of waiting. I'm sure whenever they come out with a Yy-pipe and B-pipe they'll be great products but I'll probably have moved on to a G35 6 speed by then! Anybody try the Cattman 2k-2k1 B-pipe?

And to keep this on topic: EMAX - you'll also very likely have to lower the crossmember (the one below the main cat) because the y-pipe will cause the b-pipe/main cat to be a bit lower and it'll bang against the crossmember, even on moderatley hard take-offs. You'll likely need to buy longer bolts and of course you'll need some washers.

 

Hey guy's I am all done now I put every thing back on the car and I don't see or feel any air leaks. The stillen pipe was a real PITA to get on, it took a lot of forcing and smashing to get into place. Now that it's on it fits like a glove

I posted a new thread about the completiuon of this project, heres the link : http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?threadid=139180

sleepermax, in my 4 mile sprited jont i did not detect any noise from the center cross member. Thank you for the tip, i will keep an eye on it.



IceY2K1, I agree, I just got sick of waiting for someone to make a pipe. When I found out the pipe was not what I thought it was going to be I decided to do my own thing.


Lordrandall, lol! I am just a stuburn determined guy, haha..

 

GREAT JOB Buddy!!!!! Be sure and post the butt dyno graph for us!!

Seriously....You are THE man.