Jump to content
Ultimate Subaru Message Board

busted my exhaust today


Recommended Posts

I dont know how, it was quiet when i left one person's house, and then all of a sudden on the road, my cruising engine sound suddenly got alot deeper, and yes, as soon as i let off the throttle or pushed it in a little bit, i heard a major exhaust leak..

 

i still havent jacked the car up to localize and identify the issue, but im not too concerned about it. my big point was that this is the first time ive heard the ea-82's exhaust note unadulterated...... and great scott, this little motor sounds dead sexy!! i have NEVER met any inline four that didnt sound like crap un-muffled..... and it doesnt sound that much like a volkswagen motor either! why is that? what makes the VW exhaust note so much sharper than the soob?? now im actually thinking about putting some sort of exhaust system in, for more than just repair purposes... more to get a nice-sounding exhaust out of her..

 

well, i was thinking hard about tearing into the exhaust on the car soon anyhow..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

VW sound so much sharper because they're AC, a lot of the noise they make comes from the cilinders

 

a subaru is of course LC and the KVS jackets dampen the cilinder noise, so you'll only hear the exhaust note

 

and yes, subaru's sound great un-mufflered :grin:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The old subes blow it out when they need too :lol:

I just blew the guts out of my 93's muffler on the highway saturday. A pipe slid right out of the muffler like it took a turd! luckily I was at a rest stop and it happened as I was looking at it .Luck was with me. I have never heard anything like it ( I am 33 and travel nearly everyday to say this). I had put a glasspack to replace resignator and now it is running on that and a hollowed muffler-- nearly a full system , except for the exhaust tip/tailpipe. I don't even want to fix it, it sounds like a low rpm version of an exotic engine, all its own.I really have to record and post the sound here. Of course I have heard broken exhausts many times, but I really mean unique with this one. It is as if it hollowed out *exactly* what it needed at the end of the exhaust system. I would love to quiet it down just a tad what it has for backpressure , but it is always a guessing game:-\

 

it is quieter than a harley...I think I'll just run it! it is quite a stinker, if it is original and just breaking open after many years, but stench goes away...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As for the noise starting out quiet, then opening up, it might be your maniflold gaskets. I burned both of mine out on a highway run when I was "pushing" the car a bit. (WOT for an hour straight) Replacing the gaskets and retighting the studs might be all it takes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

nah, it was a simple problem.. i just have no floor jack, only a scissor jack, so i didnt bother jacking the front up until today.. only to look back at the muffler and see it staring straight back at me. the pipe had been "kustomized" in the past with a repair consisting of a couple sheets of sheet metal about 4" square, and two large hose clamps..

 

However, before noticing that i thoroughly investigated the rest of the exhaust, and dfound a few small rust holes in the bottom of the cat.. then realized they were all along this odd line drawing 3 lines of a rectangle over the entire body of the cat... then realized it was a WELD.. and so i figure that someone, somewhere, cut open this cat and gutted it for me.... :- ) thanks a bunch, whoever! (i have no emissions standards to pass here in south florida, and as long as the cat looks like its there, the cops would have to want to tear my car down for some reason to discover its not legit... which is a virtually zero chance)

 

Well, i wound up getting a piece of exhaust adapter from discount (advance, whatever) and rigged it back together, purring like she was before.. except now i know that there ARE a couple pinhole leaks, and i COULD get it to run quieter.

 

My uncle may have some OEM subaru mufflers around, i think they were to an early 80s model tho... any clue how universal the mufflers were? i just might want to go ahead and stick one on, they were kinda windfall...

 

He actually has some radiators, and other things too... NOS units, OEM and everything.. some were still in box, some werent.. but theyre all in good shape... unfortunately theyre buried in a closet behind a pile of other stuff, so i cant really catalogue it now. In due time....

 

shawn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

jack it up and check it out. exhaust repair is frequently easy, and if its not, its rather apprently so... at first, i thought the little holes and the weld line in my cat were pointing me towards needing a new one of those, too... until i looked back towards the dangling muffler.... :- ) i thought the sound was coming from further towards the front, too... and ive broken exhausts in all sorts of places, so i have developed a bit of a sense for it too....

 

anyhow, my repair required more time sawing the end of the pipe sticking out of the muffler off (to make it a good round, flush mating surface to go with my uneven, bent in, and in-the-middle-of-a-bend exhaust pipe side mating surface...) and more time in the store looking for the requisite adapter pipes and clamps than it did to actually repair.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

jack the car up and try it. its not hard. worst case scenario, you waste at MOST an hour. just be careful not to round any nuts or bolts, that stuff gets rusty down there. and dont run the car too long if you think you want to put it back together quickly.. the exhaust is obviously the first thing that gets too hot to touch. it does cool off fairly quickly though...but be careful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My exhuast blew up at after the >- part but before the second cat looking thing. Its bolted together there but I cant get it tight.

 

What should I do.

 

I was thinking I should replace that second cat with a cherry bomb and taking out the muffler. Easy enough to do without a welder or know how. Or should I go to an exhaust shop. I do not have any emissions tests.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

if you have decent parts stores around, they should have a selection of adapter pipes and stuff... i went and found the size that fit on the stubby end of pipe that was left where it fell off the muffler (right in front of the muffler here..) and got the piece that went on that on one end, and slipped onto my muffler on the other end, and the two appropriately sized clamps. i dont recall the exact sizes, and there is no guarantee theyd be the same anyhow, but if you have a caliper to measure the diameter of the pipe, that would be handy.... although thats not standard equipment, i know... if you can cut off a sample piece of the pipe to take in and fit fittings for, and get the hardware to fit it, then its easy... just make sure you visualize all the changes youre making, and make sure everything fits right, measuring these things accurately can be a tedious process, but its worth it. simple bolt-on clamps work adequately, if the system is well assembled and you clamp them right, but you have to get the right size clamps for each fitting.. the smallest ones that fit on the outside pipe. make sure to snug each nut on the clamp finger-tight, then use a wrench or ratchet (no air tools) to turn each half a turn at a time, to evenly tighten it down. keep them even, and you will get a good seal. if you lined everything up well enough, it will set well, and depending on your choice of equipment, sound however you want it.

 

to make my long point short, yes, you can use simple bolt-in replacements without any prior extensive exhaust or welding experience.. no welding is strictly necessary, if your exhaust pipe is in good shape. just measure everything, and make sure you get EVERY dimension and change.. if it was originally a straight through, then its easy, but dont forget there are three dimensions to follow things through.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My exhuast blew up at after the >- part but before the second cat looking thing. Its bolted together there but I cant get it tight.

 

What should I do.

 

I was thinking I should replace that second cat with a cherry bomb and taking out the muffler. Easy enough to do without a welder or know how. Or should I go to an exhaust shop. I do not have any emissions tests.

 

glasspack works at second cat or resonator, but don't count on the oem muffler staying together for the glasspacks vibrations.Mine literally blew apart on the highway and degutted itslef, left with a dnagling ampty can with rust chunks falling randomly...:grin: There are after oem mufflers that work great all over the place. muffler shop is a great idea, they can be ingenuitive cheaply, bending custom pipe etc. and go for welds, avoid clamps."muffler clamp" has a title for a reason, don't put any closer to the engine prior to muffler.The little pipes do alot of work ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...