lagwagon

I got out and did some R & D on the new exhaust system. To be honest I don't like the new set up for around town. It is super noisey for one and I'm not looking for any unwanted attention. Especially from the cops. I need to find a way to quiet it down some( add cat or quieter muffler ? I'm not sure).And I lost a little low end power which is what driving around town requires. On the positve side I don't get tail gated as much now. BUT.... I did my first gravel road run and it definatelly improved my top end power. Between 5 and 6 thousand rpm the car really takes off. quick throttle response and you can tell your in the power band. It's almost scary. Plus it sound better at that rpm. I even reved it to 7k rpm and it didn't seem like it was going to blow up. So more fun in the dirt but less practical for around town. I guess that doesn't surprise me. I try and relay to people the result of my mods so they can decide if it's right for them. FYI That is also why I do one mod at a time so I know what the results are. plus it's easier to fix if I did something wrong or If I didn't like the result I know why.

I think if you were going in a straight line lower psi would increase traction to a point, but a tire that is under inflated going throught a hard turn will produce understeer because of tire role which will turn into a slide if pushed. On the other hand an over inflated tire will be so hard it won't get good traction and will understeer. For example when auto-crossing. I have locked up the brakes and left a big long skid.This heats up the tire which actually increases tire pressure. This situation will cause the car to have understeer for the rest of the run. Like someone said already you want to find the ideal psi for your tire and then adjust psi to induce understeer or oversteer. Tires with a bigger side walls need a higher psi to hold there line and shape. but there are too many factors to have just one rule. But usally higher psi in front and lower in back will cause your car to oversteer. I'm not sure why you would want your can to understeer but, usally lower in front and higher in back would give you this result if the tire were near there ideal psi. I have read a few books on racing and that was always thier advice as well as some good auto-crossers gave me the same advice. P.S. I believe this site advice is based on you useing the ideal psi for maximum traction and then adjusting psi to make a car over react or under react.For auto cross it is useful to drift some obsticles so if you set the car up to oversteer your back end won't clip the cone and you can hold a tighter line. http://www.kormanfastbmw.com/thandling.htm

I think you got it backwards according to this page http://www.kormanfastbmw.com/thandling.htm at least I know from experience the tire pressure info is backwards. everything else I'm not sure about. Also with tire pressure you never want the difference to be more than 10 psi. For auto-cross I run 46 psi up front and 38 psi rear this set up with induce oversteer for sure I'm not guessing.

I learned how to weld on this project so the welds get better as I went. Tig welders are really nice to use, no splatter. I also ground out the welds on the inside to improve flow, well the ones I could reach. If I do another exhaust I think it will come out even better. I learned a lot on this project and I want to keep up on my welding skills plus I have a bunch of stainless left over.I just need to find a place to bend it. Everywhere around here either couldn't bend it or wouldn't bend it.Except for my friend who got me all the stuff but he just moved back to Califorina. A turbo exhaust I think would be easier because I wouldn't try to match the Y pipe length( I know the turbo doesn't have the Y anyway ). Which was the crux of this job and the part I think I could do better. A turbo with stainless would be cool and it would make the pipe turn different colors after it got hot. Thanks for everyones positive feedback. It's much appreciated. Oh ya the_bard. how much would it cost. I think stainless is $5 a foot. I think a pro could do this job in a day or less, that's $ 250 to $400. I'm guessing I have about 18' of pipe on there so thats $90. I priced a stainless collector at $150 and I think you need that part to do it right.So I guesstimate $490 at the very minimum. Not many shops do stainless so that might be a monitary factor. Also I don't think a shop could legally build a system w/o a cat. I hope there is some usefull info in there somewhere.

Ya it dumps out on the left but it curves right to avoid the trany cross memeber. just like the stock pipe straight is proablly better for flow but you would compromise clearence to do so. I have smashed my pipe a few times so I'm going for clearence.Anyway the new system has no problem with flow now. Stainless was out of my budget also but ,I know a guy who works for Muzzys which is a high performance muffler manufacturer for motorcycles. I payed $40 for the whole set up. Just the collector is a $150 part retail. I could have made it out of titanium but that's a little over the top and harder to weld.

Well it's done. sort of. I still need to make the hangers and install the O2 sensor as soon as I find the right size nut. The spark arrestor does a good job at controlling back pressure. It was way too loud without it. I think the matched pipe did the job. My car run noticablely smoother and even. At 5200 rpm the car is really lively now. I spent all day on this final stage and I'm super tired. now it's time to have a beer cheers

Here it on the car. It didn't fit as tight up in there as I wanted but it's my first time doing something like this. It's harder than you would think to make a part like this.

the Y is 1.75" and it's 2.0" after the collector. I have a Raptor Turbo muffler on there now but, I don't like the tone at low rpm. I was thinking I would put on the Thrush 2'' and see how that works and sounds. It would definately fit better. Also I plan on finishing it off with a spark arrestor for three reasons. 1, it's a spark arrestor. a good idea if your gonna be ripping through the woods around here.Especially with a more free flowing exhaust. 2, it will mellow out the sound a little. I like to here my car but the people a mile away proably don't 3, and proably the most functional is to control back pressure.The arrestor I bought has about 10 rings you can add or remove them to attain the perfect back pressure and change back pressure for different uses. Open it up to rally. close in down to get some low end power. basically I will have a tuneable exhaust.

That's my plan !!!

The V bend is called the collector. It gives you the best flow when joining two pipe into one. The bend after the collector is to avoid my transmistion cross member. I got the Y pieced together today. I will tig weld it tonight. Oh ya did I mention it's all stainless steel.

I sanded, primered ,and used one coat. The stuff goes on pretty thick. So far its seems pretty durable but I don't know if anything is going to be rock chip proof. You should have seen the bottom of my car before. It looked like it was sand blasted. Totally bare metal. not even rust. I think it would be great for the interior. I was originally going to do my floor boards that way.

I painted on that truck bed liner stuff half way up the sides. I like the new look. added better pic.

My goal here was to match the lenght of the y pipes. This is not the exact perportions but you can see the flow path. I'm going to try and piece it together this weekend. I also machined flat the exhaust manifold attachment point and ported it.

For the loyale. Both parts look exactlty the same form the outside. The old part can slip on all the way. the new parts metal collor is longer so the rotor can't slip on all the way down to make the set screw hole line up. I guess I'll just replace the whole ditributer when the time comes? If I cant figure it out.

Thanks DrKrazy. I knew someone else must have run into the same problem.

I think it's a formula that shows you how much gain in stiffness you will attain realative to your previous sway bar diameter is proablely acurate.I could see a 19mm feeling 24% stiffer than a 18mm.I'm not sure what you're previous size was relative to your current size but I guess 671% stiffer would be correct. So your new set up is 6.71 times stiffer. Ouch that seems pretty stiff. If you look at some of the other tech info pages on that site it has a cool page that explains the effects of Sway bars and tire pressure on oversteer and understeer.

I guess you could say they are different rotors because they are not the same but in theory they should be the correct rotor because I'm requesting the part by the year and model of my car. I don't remember ever seeing a part # but I will look again. The parts look identicle to each other but it's the inside that are different. The new rotor does not go on as far.

To make a short story long. I went to do a simple distributer cap and rotor replacement about 8 years ago. No problem right? No a very frustraiting problem. I was being super careful when installing the new rotor because the set screw is very small and easy to drop and lose.Well I'm turning it in tring to get the threads started and turning and turning. 40 minates later and two new screws I still can't start the screw. So I finally get the old rotor and it goes right on. I have bought over 10 different rotors from 10 different places ( I even went to a subaru dealership ) and none of them have the set screw hole in the same spot as my rotor. I guess I have a different distributer than most. I thought about modifying one but there is more to it than just drilling a new set screw hole.You need to mill of some material on the inside where it goes onto the shaft.And I think you need to be precise when doing this. I was just wondering if anyone else has seen this problem before and maybe has a good solution. Thanks!

I am tring to learn more about anti sway bars and I found this link ,and I thought some of you would be interested in seeing this formula http://www.kormanfastbmw.com/tantiswa.htm

I know what you mean. When I go looking for parts or do a modification and people ask what kind of car is it for and, I say a Loyale. I always get the eye roll unless they are some one who has owned a subaru ,and then of course they understand. Same thing at the auto cross. I was the only station wagon , but my times where keeping pace with the Mazda Miatas.I think I changed some opinions that day. I know I could change almost anyones opinion about my beater subaru (and I have) if they go for a ride down a gravel road or a ice covered street going fast in control. Basically I'm not afraid to rally my car because it's not worth that much.I don't care if I chip the paint or get a big scratch. If I had a wrx I would be worried I was going to wreck a $20k car. so I would proably bady it.But with the loyale I get to drive the car to it's full potential.

Here is a Raptor turbo muff. $20 2'' in out. This muffler was reversable so I did offset in , center out.

Where I live it is rediculis how many subarus there are. I have heard people say that 50% of the cars are suby's here. I could believe it on the west side of town. This town has a bunch of skiers, Mtn. bikers, kayakers ect. and subys are such a practical car for those people. That's why I bought one. 4wd for the winters, good ground clearence for driving the forest service roads, economical to drive, cargo space, and very reliable. But the town I live in is definately an exception. Where I grew up in the mid west the are not very common.Everyone back there drives American cars for the most part because everything is flat, straight and paved.

I believe the brake fade is caused by gases that build up between the pad and rotor when heavy braking heats the whole system up. Cross drilled or slotted rotors give the gases a way to escape from between the rotor and pad. But that would not explain why your brakes worked before. I bought after market pads that are high temp organic.Brake pad compound make a huge difference in performance. My guess is your new pads were a different compound and were putting off more gas. Or it could be you just need to brake in the new pads especially if you didn't resurface your rotors.

Finally got it flat, even though in this picture it's hard to tell.pic #2. With the rear top mount upside down my front and rear adjustable struts are level at the lowest position. I also made a rear strut tower brace pic #1

Yes...... I'm looking for racing alloys. I could use 2 Imco T 13x5.5 or 4 of the Enkei Please send me a Private Message if you can help me.