Does the Nuespeed exhaust have flex sections in the downpipes? Also curious how your engine mounts look?
That really sucks. I don’t see any way the dealer covers it. It would take a lot of movement to sheer off the cat at the exhaust manifold. Gotta think something else is not right, or you really had a lot of movement when tracking.
If you want to go stock, finding someone that has gone with test pipes may be your best option (Ron or mrmomo?). I’m not sure what happened to JHM’s HFC they were advertising. I knew 034 had stopped offering them, but JHM was talking their’s up when they launched their test pipes and HFC…
Well, the good news is AWE is super easy to deal with.
I went through the same thing. I originally installed the exhaust myself, but I had a shop try to adjust it when I thought maybe the noises were caused by my install (they weren’t…). Then I had a shop install the replacement downpipes (so much easier on the lift). I also paid my local AWE shop to install the central muffler so I didn’t have to send in my defective one first, but the pipe sizes changed so my car sat there for several days waiting for new rear pipes too… All-in-all, I’ve probably spent $400 in labor, another $200 in shipping, and several days of my time dealing with the issues.
That’s a lot of wrecks. Were these folks riding solo? IMO, the best insurance policy is a passenger who isn’t your buddy. It encourages a safe line over the glory of a “fast” lap.
I have said in the past that I felt a lot of vibration in the pedal after installing the exhaust. But just assumed it was drone. Even guessed that the exhaust was causing my timing pull from false knock.
The downpipe does have a flex section, although admittedly it does feel like the entire back section puts a large load on the dp/cat flange. There is a center slip joint that we kind of torqued a bit to get the tips to face correctly back. Wonder if that contributed. The trade off for bolt on flanges in the rear vs slip-joints everywhere is lack of adjustability (double edged sword).
I’m pretty sure I didn’t do something stupid like flip left/right downpipes…not sure how that would even bolt-on…any ideas on what I could look at or do to determine if the install is incorrect?
I can’t see my motor mounts, guess I could go look at those. This happened right as I crested a hilly section at turn 10a.
I called JHM and they said they don’t know when the part will be released. 034 is done with them, also called. They all want to sell me test pipes though.
Mrmomo said he might want to return stock, plus I assume those cats have 45k miles…and if I pay the labor to replace, might want to use a newer part. But the right one is 1.1k msrp :’(
Those were mostly instructors and advanced guys. ACNA event. Actually, everyone going off and needing the wrecker were instructors. I’m sure they would appreciate your “advice”.
LOL well to be fair, it’s really easy to be an “instructor”. They are not all equal.
And just because one is good at teaching fundamentals, doesnt mean that they are good at executing said fundamentals.
Sure, but I think west was more talking down to those guys down like they didn’t understand the basics. Everyone will eventually run out of talent, otherwise there are spots in F1 lol They just f’ed up one way or another. Definitely huge variance in instructor quality and reasons for being there…but they don’t need to be sent back to green group to get their “rules” straight.
Although the egos and passing issues don’t seem to be gone at that level either from what I’ve observed LOL
Being an instructor is a dangerous job, and I’m not talking about riding with the students. There’s a complex you develop where you stop receiving your instruction yourself. You try to keep pace with your cohorts, your street car starts to quit on you, and you put it into a wall. In a good school, only the instructors get into accidents. That doesn’t mean the chapter doesn’t have work to do, it just means its an internal leadership issue. I’m glad in drob’s case it wasn’t students cars because that is particularly egregious.
My solution is if you go off, you too get a buddy to ride along with you for the rest of the weekend. The 160 pound risk management device in the right seat.
Yes keeping the test pipes but you don’t want my cats… they have like 60k miles on them. If your newer ones failed, your better off going with something newer/more robust. We can work something out if you really want mine though.
It’s worth considering the added noise that comes with going catless. My car is actually really loud at WOT (APR did use these on their race car lol)… Idk if that will fly for your track days with noise violations etc… Your neuspeed system has additional mufflers compared to my awe track so it should be a bit quieter but still something to think about
Yeah, I sold/donated mine to AWE way back when… Pretty much sums it up that they never moved forward with making HFC’s, IE they don’t do much as we’ve learned over the years… Maybe stage III will change that? lol
Shit goes wrong quickly with those cars. One day you’re wrenching around. Next day you’re going a $9k motor build because your block is cracked. If $5k breaks the budget you’re in trouble with something that old and fragile. I have a buddy in New York who tracks an old Civic hatchback and that seems to be very reliable.
The local race shop I use just sold two of their E36’s; both for under $20k. Both were pretty successful track cars. This should give you a good idea on what you can get for $17k-$20k…
LOL. You guys would buy a car that has done several seasons of NASA races over one that went to a couple of HPDE events at a novice level? Of course prices might be 10% lower in rural Texas than Bay Area California.
