so recently my wife said her car was running odd and sounded funny. i looked under the hood and sure enough the exhaust manifold was busted. quite a dang crack i must say. its a 2000 civic lx. nothing fancy, the car is completely stock. We dont need anything crazy that is going to cost a million bucks. im not sure where to look. ebays prices are quite nice, but what ive read they arent worth the trouble. any input would be nice as we are down to one car at the moment and that can get old fast!!

 

Your car has the vertical and integral exhaust manifold and catalytic converter. If you shop around on mail order sites you can find the Dorman brand for about $160 (provided you are not in CA or NY, which have more stringent emission requirements). The original Honda exhaust manifold and Dorman's are made of the same material, cast iron, and you may soon suffer the same crack. However, a muffler shop told me that if you remove the heat shield then you are less likely to develop a cracked exhaust manifold.

A bit more expensive are the stainless steel manifolds made by Magnaflow and Bosal. I installed the Magnaflow unit it our two Civics ('96 & '98) and they are working well and passing CA smog tests.

Alternatively, if you don't live in CA or NY you could convert your vertical one-piece manifold/cat to the superior two-piece EX style exhaust. See the link below.
https://www.hondacivicforum.com/foru...version-73237/

 

its possible to have the crack welded if you go budget after market remember not all parts are the same quality and most after market cats are nowhere near oem quality so if you have emissions then you mite not pass even with a brand new cat out of the box.

 

finally had a chance to get the honda all put back together over the last month, wasnt that high on priority list. i ended up using a the 4-2-1 header with a magnaflow cat and ex cat back(still using the stock muffler, used other pieces to bolt together.) car runs and drives great. not too loud, however im getting a CEL on. but when scanning with a scan tool no codes are stored. kinda odd. the only option i can think of is i used my soldering iron to extend the rear O2 sensor instead of buying a 20$ wire extender. anyone else have any suggestions?

 

try the 02 sensor defouler trick.