SnakeCarDriver

Ok, I'm noob with good wrench skills so I am going to tackle the new clutch on my own.
While I have the ehxaust undone, trans out and good access, my plan is to throw on some exhaust components. Two questions. First, which exhaust components will I get the most flow with (best increases?). Probably won't spring for the while circuit at once if at all, so I would like to get the best bang for my buck (and time). Second, the car is a 1998 Cobra with about 117,000 miles (but the car was totally neglected before i got it two years ago -- bad clutch and grinding into reverse!! ) so, rebuilod the trans while I have it out?? How durable are these things?? Thoughts?

SnakeCarDriver

ok so maybe I'll have to shop around but could someome at least tell me the order the parts are in the circuit? I know headers come off the engine but am lost after that.

WhiteFoxGT

what do you mean my circuit???

And if you are planning on doing headers on that Cobra, good luck buddy... You need to either drop the K-member or lift the engine out to do any kind of shorty or long tubes... For now, I'd toss in an offroad X pipe and some MIL elims until you can afford a nice set of longtubes and get a lift + cherry picker

SnakeCarDriver

hey I appreciate that. I probably would have figured it out the hard way..
anyhow. new question.. offroad? why? and what does MIL stand for?

THANKS!

mike08

what whitefox said

vanquish

The offroad X or H pipes have no cats its up to you to get offroad or onroad if your state is tight with emissions get the onroad. MIL is malfunction indicator light. If you buy an offroad x/h pipe or even some onroad ones, your check engine light will come on because the rear o2 sensors are reading no catilitic converters. So you will need MIL's or a tuner.

ShadowDrake

Okay, to clarify a couple of things that others have already explained...

Most aftermarket exhaust is broken up into three sections, exhaust manifolds (replaced with headers), midpipe, and catback. You've got the headers so...

The midpipe is where your exhaust cross-over is (h or x, or even prochamber), and where the stock catalytic converters are. Your car will have four, two for each side. The cats are just emissions equipment, and really are not required beyond that. There's a couple of benefits of going with a cat-less (aka off-road) midpipe:

More power! The stock cats are fairly restrictive, a simple midpipe swap didn't give me personally an increased feel in power but it DOES make a difference.
Louder - The stock cats are surprisingly good at deadening the sound of your car, to get a general idea of how it will sound after removing them, just think of your car's sound almost the way it is, but add lots of definition and volume to it. Elements of the sound that were just a deep, barely noticable sound before, will become very clear. If you're running SLP or some other loud exhaust with cats now, keep this in mind, it may become so loud, it will become annoying very quickly
Cheaper - Finally, catalytic converters are expensive, an off-road pipe often costs much less than a version with a couple of cats on it.. If you want to go cheaper, go off-road!

There's down-sides though... the louder exhaust can get annoying... the fumes are strong (but you get used to it, and learn to love it!) and if you're in a state that has emissions inspections, you'll probably have to swap to your stock pipe every year to pass the test.

The other choice here, is in H, X, or prochamber. Stock, you've got an H... X pipes are supposed to sound more raspy, and the prochamber is just totally different. I got an O/R prochamber and absolutely LOVE IT!

Finally, the catback section is where the mufflers are, all the way to the end. Called the catback because it refers to the location of the mufflers -- after the cats. 05+ stangs have axlebacks... aka mufflers after the axle.

MIL = Malfunction Indicator Lamp... but as far as what they're referring to here...

You've got four oxygen sensors on the exhaust, the front pair are for measuring the A/F ratio, they are before the stock cats. The other pair are behind the cats and are used to determine the cat's efficiency... If you remove the cats (sometimes, high-flow cats will cause it too), the ECU will see it, and think the cats have just gone bad, and the check engine light will come on. MIL eliminators stop this from happening by faking the signal from the rear O2 sensors... the ECU thinks everything is fine, no check engine light.

Don't buy $60 mil eliminators... there's a nice write-up for home-made ones on www.paladinmicro.com (thanks to cliffyk here on the forums - that's his site).