Gainesville Opening Day 2003

Installing a New Exhaust

This process should seem easy enough right, well factor in an AOD transmission, long tube headers, and you get a 7 hour project and some really nice pictures! A special thanks goes out to Mustang Motorsports and Scott Lagdon for the hours that everyone logged in.

We were replacing the Mac Shorties, Off road H pipe, and Flowmasters with a new complete exhaust system. The new system consisted of Mac long tube headers, A Dr. Gas X-Pipe, Spintech Sportsman mufflers, and Mac 2 1/2" tail pipes (A big thanks to Scott for that one!!) We anticipated 3-4 hours for the install, and barring all the problems, I think we could have made that easily. I think if it were a T5, we could have cut the time in half, if not more. So my recommendation is, don't do this on an AOD tranny!!

The project began by raising the car and loosening everything from underneath, pretty simple, took about 10 minutes, we then lowered the car and prepared to loosen the Mac shorties that were currently on. Again, another simple task that was completed in no time.

This is where it started to get ugly. The shorties wouldn't come out, so a litle persuading had to be enforced. Needless to say after a lot of swearing, a lot of bleeding, and some sweat, the shorties finally came out. Time so far 2 hours!!

The above pictures shows us with the motor jacked through the roof and still not enough clearance. Once we got the shorties out, we went ahead and tried to insert the passenger side long tube through the top. What a nightmare that was. It finally went in with some help from a rubber mallet, I wouldn't recommend this though, it make lineing up the headers with the heads very interesting. (Nice work Sean!)

Here we see Jeff trying to stuff the long tube through the passenger side, what you can't see is Sean underneath with the crowbar! Needless to say this side was the most difficult, netting almost an hour by itself. Total time so far, 3 hours and counting.

This is a better shot of Sean with the crow bar. Its amazing how effective those things are at maneuvering in tight spaces. And yes thats a transmission stand that Jeff is standing on, note to self, next time, don''t raise the car so high! At this point we are still at 3 hours.

Once the headers dropped in, Sean took to work on welding the X-pipe. Again, the AOD came back to bite us, thus the extra tubing on the left crossover (actually it's the right crossover, but the picture is reversed). Other than that this process went right along, we took a lunch break here, and a much needed breather. Total time at this point, a little over 4 hours

After eating lunch, Sean went back to welding, this part was definately a 3 man job. One to weld, and two to hold the pieces in place. We fabbed up some extra hands, (Scott couldn't be found by this time, something about a date?) and went on welding. Again, the welding was pretty straightforward, a couple of tweeks here and there, but nothing that a little quick thinking couldn't solve. Time so far, pushing 6 hours.

Here is a shot of the mufflers welded in place looking forward. Yes that is the dogbone still in place, and yes the 2.73's are still in there, getting ready to be pulled soon though! Only roadblock with the mufflers were the extender tubes were about 2 inches long, so we brought out the cutting tool and whacked it! Time so far, pushing 7 hours.

Here is a shot of the tailpipes getting fitted. The pipes went right in, and except for a little bending on the driver side of the gas tank shell, everything went smoothly. Be sure here to make sure the gap between the bumper and tailpipe is even on both sides, this installation was almost perfect! Time thus far, a little over 7 hours.

A final shot of the clearancing of the tailpipes. Look at all that room in there!! Well, final time roughly 7 and a half hours, minus some time for chatting, lunch, and some interesting stories!