What if I put this muffler tip on? It's supposed to be universal. I would have to go to a place that would work on it and weld it on, but what would I tell them to do? I want to keep my cat converter obviously... so I can pass emissions.... but what size pipping? What does mandrel bent mean? Do I want that? And also, I have a 1998 DX coupe... I want to put some headers on it, but the headers that "fit" my DX wrap around the engine... from the front side to the bottom where its supposed to attach to the cat converterand, and then that is supposed to connect to pipping and muffler. However, on my stock exhaust manifold it has tinly little tubes and my cat converter is right there! Right almost on the lower front of my engine. Is it supposed to be there? I don't know what to say... when I take the muffler to be put on do I have them move the cat converter and have them put the headers on? Can the cat converter be moved from its position?

 

Okay, there's a lot of things to cover here, but I'll give it a shot. First of all, that's a muffler, not a muffler tip. You can put it on one of two ways. The first way to do it is by yourself (I'm not going to go into how to do that since I disapprove of it). The second way is to take it to a muffler shop and have them remove the stock muffler and weld this one on. Just go there and ask them to put this muffler on your car; I'm sure they'll know what to do (I wouldn't trust them if they didn't). Yes, you want to keep your cat, also. You won't pass emissions testing without one. On a dx, the catalytic converter is built right into your exhaust manifold, which is why it's sort of odd-shaped. The easiest thing to do is get a header for an ex/si and get a catalytic converter for an ex/si, and then get a full cat-back exhaust for an ex/si. Then, you don't have to take anything to a muffler shop since everything will bolt nicely together and you can easily put it on yourself over a weekend.

 

OK... but I wouldn't need to make any modifications would I? As in the EX headers would fit right? And what if I still wanted to go this rout... buying the muffler and having piping made for it? I would need the EX headers, the EX cat converter, and then they would just fit the piping and muffler to it?

 

no modification should be needed. And yeah, bolt on the ex header (you only have one header... v-configurations have headers) and cat, and you can take the muffler to a shop and have them make a custom cat-back. I'd recommend looking into a resonator, too. They basically act as a second muffler, and without it, your exhaust will probably sound really raspy.

 

alright man thanks a lot...

 

Mandrel bending is a way of bending pipes, specifically in exhuasts, yes you want that. There are 2 main types, crush bends and mandrel bends. Crush bends are uaully what the factory uses because they are cheap and fast, but since the pipe gets crushed and restricted slightly when bending it restricts airflow and causes turbulence. Mandrel bending is more expensive, but involves some kind of insert while they bend the pipe to keep it from crushing. This allows proper air flow and the least backpressure on the engine.

 

seriously to answer almost all your questions, read the Ehxuast FAQ and Header FAQ