dirtystang04

90 bucks for 6 cats is cheap. take it to a scrap yard and you should have no problem getting at least 175. (at least here in Jersey thats a fair price). I got 200 for minefrom my buddy who owns a shop and takes cars to the scrapper all the time.

AJ06GT

Oh man! It sounds gooood now, though I did feel a little guilty testing it out at 11pm haha, sorry neighbors.

So yeah, ended up running into a hell of a problem. The stud came out with the bolt when I was taking down the old midpipe. Which stud? One on the drivers side that's easy? Uhh, no. The top one on the passenger side that's not too bad? Of course not, THE bolt. The one that is a pain in the *** to get to. So, with the help of a buddy (AllVenom on here actually), we managed to get the damn midpipe hooked up finally. After a few hours of fighting with that, the cat back went together in maybe 30 minutes tops with the two of us. So it's all done finally, but sadly we'll have to wait until tomorrow for some better pics and maybe a sound clip. Like I said, I don't have the camera here so I can't take good videos, but my cell phone can record sound so we'll just have to see how badly it butchers it. I'll definitely post once I get the camera and take a video of it though, that'll be this weekend.

Anyway, I'm exhausted, and dirty. I'm gonna go get a shower then head out for a few drinks. I'll do a big review type post tomorrow once I get to drive it a little more.

White 96GT

WOW! First off I didn't know a scrap yard would pay 200 bucks for my mid pipe!
Second off When you say the midpipe is moduler does that mean that mean that I can install it on my stock manifolds then latter upgrade to LTs and use the same midpipe?
If so I thought that SLP was the only one to do that.

AJ06GT

You know, I wondered the same thing. I'd assume that since you can buy just the legs, that you could get the short legs for LTs, but I didn't see the short legs for sale on Mac's website. It's definitely something to look into though.

By the way, for bleau, it was a 7/8" wrench that I used to get off the O2 sensors.

bleau

Thanks AJ.

Armydad

Holy crap 6 cats ! I'm in NY and they do sniff tests, If I go with 2 high flows in the mid pipe will I have issues with inspection? [:-]

AJ06GT

Dunno, I think they are usually on the edge. I'm pretty sure I've read about people who failed sniffer tests with 2 high flows, but what's the point of putting any cats on if you're not going to pass? I'd be pretty annoyed if my catted pipe failed.

Anyway, time for an update! We'll start with some pictures of the installed exhaust:

Off Road Legs:


Prochamber:


Mufflers:



Then it's on to day two of work...

Nurse, my gloves:

That's a trick I learned from my dad. Use latex gloves when changing oil and not only does it help your hands out, but you can take them off when you need to touch something else without spreading oil tracks everywhere.

Blood Transfusion:


Blood Transfusion - Part II:


Clean Edge?


Uhh, no, how about Pure One:


The Goods - Part III:


And finally, the aftermath:


So, the review so far... Sorry if I repeat a few things, overviewing it all.

Install wasn't too bad. I definitely suggest finding someone with a sawzall, or even buying one for the job. If you try to cut those tail pipes with a hack saw you'll be ready to stop working for the day before you even start. I borrowed a sawzall from a buddy, bought a metal blade, and had both of the tailpipes off in 5 minutes. Uninstalling the cat back was a breeze, maybe 10 minutes for it all.

Started to uninstall the midpipe and got to the well known passenger side front bolt and found that I didn't have a socket the right depth. Just really short and deep. Checked Home Depot, Lowes, Advance, all had crappy selections for sockets, ended up driving to Sears and finally got something that would get on there. Finally got a socket on, started to loosen it, and straight from Murphy's law, that was the ONE bolt that took the stud loose with it. Well now the midpipe came off, but this made for quite a bit of fun later on installing the Prochamber.

So installing the Prochamber. After figuring out which end was which and getting it loosely connected, I slid it under the car and up into place. By the way, I did all of this, uninstalling the old midpipe, and installing the new, by myself. They aren't THAT heavy, and if you're on jackstands, you're only bringing them up or down maybe a foot. So anyway, got it up on the hangers to hold it up, and put the nuts finger tight on the drivers side to hold it up, then came the fun. If you thought getting onto the nut was bad... try threading the stud back through the hole and into the header pipe again. This took the better part of 3-4 hours I'd guess. As mentioned in a previous post, a buddy (AllVenom) came over to help me out and he finally managed to get it to thread in while i held the pipe on the back so it wasn't swinging around. That was a pain in the *** to say the least. Tightened up the rest of the bolts on the midpipe in a few minutes and moved on to the cat back.

The cat back install was a breeze. With AllVenom still there, we both did one side and had the whole thing done in about 30 minutes tops. No problems at all there. Nothing much to say about that.

Now that it's finished I got to sit back and enjoy it a little. It has a really nice deep idle that actually brings out even the stock cam which I really liked. I like this set up a lot because when I need to, I can put it in a higher gear and run it at 1500-2000 RPMs and it's not too loud, but if I want to take it all the way out, it screams. I promise I'll get videos once the camera is back here and post them here.

So then yesterday I put the front back up on jackstands to tighten the bolts all the way back again. I thought I had a leak but now I'm wonder if that's just what an O/R pipe sounds like (anyone? Is there like a ticking or tapping sound pretty loud when you accelerate with an O/R pipe? I don't hear a leak underneath).

Also, while I was down there, I finally got my oil and tranny fluid changed. I can only assume that the transmission fluid had never been changed, so I got that taken care of. Oil I know was changed every 3000 miles on the dot by the previous owner, but he just brought it into Jiffy Lube or whatever. That was certainly evident by the horribly generic white "Clean Edge" oil filter haha. I swapped everything out to Royal Purple and a Pure One filter. Yes, that means I switched to synthetic at 79k, but I don't expect any problems. The car doesn't leak a drop of oil now and seems to be in great shape. I'm sure it can handle it just fine. I don't really believe the whole "the engine will spring leaks everywhere if you swtich to synthetic with too many miles!" crap. Sure, if you have leaks, it may make them a little worse, but it's not THAT much difference. Anyway, I guess we'll see right?

So anyway, changing the fluids was no problem at all. The drain plugs are all easy to get to, just drop a bucket under them and you wont spill a drop. The only thing I can complain about is that Ford decided to mount the oil filter exactly horizontal. That meant that there was no way to take it off without dumping half of it. Still, that wasn't a big deal. Just loosen it up until it starts to drain out and just position your bucket to catch it. It's going to pour all over a few things like your tie rods, so pay attention to where it's dripping, but if you just keep backing it out slowely to let it drain until most of it is empty, you wont have too much to clean up.

Of course, as soon as I set her back down, I took the dog outside and remembered to check the mail. Oh look, MIL eliminators. So yeah, it's going back up on stands for a few minutes once more today to plug those in. Would have been nice to have gotten them while it was still up yesterday haha.

Alright, well I think that's all I have for now. Hopefully that helps anyone who hasn't done exhaust or fluid changes on their own car. Oh, the only other thing I can think to mention is that all of the O2 sensors plugged in just fine without extensions with the Prochamber on the stock exhaust manifold. I wasn't sure and couldn't find that mentioned anywhere, so I figured I'd mention that. Better pics and vids later this weekend. Oh, and I still need to take a pic of the rear view, but every time I get a chance it's already dark. I'll take one later today.

Gumby

Good Job! *clap clap clap*

Thanks for posting that. Was really interesting especially with the pics as you went along.[sm=interesting.gif]

mylongvictor

I think we've just witnessed the Mustang version of "Nip Tuck" Very good Doctor Troy...... Can I hump you on your office desk now???? lol

dlazrael

I believe the socket/wrench size for O2 sensors is 22mm

Oh, and if you get a combo wrench and don't want to cut an 1/8" slot in it, you can reach up on top of the trans where the O2 sensors plug in, and unplug them, then you should be able to thread the wires through the closed end of the wrench and take it off that way - i found that easier than that confounded "O2 socket" THAT thing was retarded!