I promised i'd do another installment of do it yourself mods since the automatic to manual swap. So here's the deal: $30 and some luck will get you some decent power and/or an awesome exhaust note.
Stuff you'll need:
-A MIG welder
-A friend who's performance exhaust fell off and you bought for $10
-A lucky break on some piping at your local muffler shop
-Some dumpster diving for small peices of tube (behind the muffler shop)
-Some exhaust cement (for those wretched aluminized mufflers that don't like to be welded to)
-Some misc. parts to form into hangers.
The story:
One night, during an attempted filming of the Pony's snow prowess, my buddy was infront of me in his 82 rabbit and his friend filming me for a brake aided fly by of my majestic 1987 Pony CX. During the filming, I noticed some sparks had started to fly from underneath his car, more and more, and suddenly the pipe broke loose and his car got 3 times louder... O_o
We pulled over and he was pissed off because the car made soo much noise it wasn't even funny. I hacked off the exhaust (I always carry "basic" tools) and placed it into my car. When we got to his house, we examined the muffler and deemed it was decent. He sold it to me for $10. I was like, "One day, I'ma build an exhaust for my Pony." That day was approaching fast. I went to a few junkyards looking for 2.25 inch piping, (which was recommended by I8ACOBRA, i think) and found none that could be used so I headed for Midas to try and buy some. Boy did I arrive at teh right time. Somebody pitched a foot of piping out taht was still good. I grabbed it out of the dumpster and went inside and said "I need 5 feet of this", going through my usual explanations that you wouldn't have pre-bent parts for thsi car, etc. Halfway through my speech, I saw a worker walking to the back with a bent peice of piping that had a large straight section and asked about it. Turns out it was the 2.25 taht I was looking for. I was able to get it for $20, and the guy even did a bend for me. Awesome. It was then off to my g/f's house to collect my old glasspack resonator (that was to be installed on my 87 escort, oh, 4 years ago...) that I had kept for some reason. Then it was off to go to my other 1987 Pony that is being "stored" to pull the last remaining part (the flange and resonator) off. Having all these peices, my plan was to make a side exit pipe a la vipe or stingray (not trailing though) right below out the side of the rear passenger door. I would not cross the rear axle as that requiered large efforts and would bend the otherwise single bend exhaust.
The adventure begins:
I arrived at my friend's house with these parts, and we immediately began removal of the old system, which was to be saved for the blue 87 Pony. In any case, it took us an hour to remove the system, and all the bolts came out. At one point, the car was lifted about 2, maybe 3 feet off the ground. Insane. (I had to be under it, carefully kicking and hammering the old system out) We ended up cutting about 3 inches off the end to clear the axle, brakes and generally to avoid dissasembling the entire exhaust system into like 50 peices. So, after hammering the old exhaust pipe off, we put it up to the old system to get a general idea of what to copy
The complete system (old) is the closest one, the high flow muffer beside the GTI is the peice that rejected my friend's rabbit, the peice above the saw is the last peice taht reamined intact (actually the axle peice was gone too! I want to know how they did this!)from the indians that "store" my blue 87 Pony, and the shiny 2.25 inch pipe is placed next to the old system for comparison.
The first thing that had to be done is making an adaptor from 1.5 inch to 2.25 inch for the manifold collector. This was a two stage process, involving the cutting of the remnant peice of the blue Pony's flange (I could have used the system I took off, but that is going on the blue Pony)
I'm grinding outside because my buddy's brother was painting one of his scirroccos. You can see the flange above my hand in the backround. I needed to have it on hand to compare to the adaptor I was working on, so as to ensure the smoothest transition from 1.5 to 2.25. That is where that part's usefulness expires. The rest consisted of welding an adaptor to the flange part. You can't see it here, but there are two welds.
The next step was deciding where the resonator should go. I actually wasn't gonna use it, but my buddy said yeah put it on, it will queten things down.
That looks like a good spot I recon! Time to hack and weld! This was a little tricky because the pipes are flush (both are 2.25 outside diameter 2.1 inside) so we had to weld strong here. The other side (outlet of resonator) was welded to the muffler with that part I found in the dumpster behind midas. It was a 2.5 inch peice, so it slid right into the end of the resonator and muffler. (the muffler was not attached yet, as in the pic)
We put some cement on the joints just to be sure. Next, John welded the flange pipe to the resonator, then the resonator extension to the muffler. I was takign some trim off his blue scirocco (not in pic) while he was welding. He said I was too slow at welding...
Can you tell this is a VW family?
I had to grind some small peices that would act as hangers to be welded to the muffler to hook onto the stock holders.
With those welded on, we were done. BEHOLD!
Compare the difference. The new exhaust stops there, and does not go over the axle.
The difference:
Mounting the system on the car took maybe 10 minutes, including bolt ups.
Editor's note: The section replaced in the floor was not necessary, but was done beause I had everything striipped from the interior, so I went ahead and did it anyways.
Since there was so much welding here, we decided to throw on some exhaust tape primarily to cover the uglyness of the joints. If the 3 welding sessions and cement didn't seal it out, this did. And it looks much better....
The tip was not added today, and currently the fumes are expelled under teh car, onto the rear axle more specifically. The tip will be added tomorrow.
Aftermath:
VERY LOUD! OMG the droning is insane under load. After messing around with an extension to the muffler outlet, it seems that adding a pipe to expel fumes to the right of the car will reduce noise very much. Additionally, due to placement issues of the stock hanger rack, it's gonna be hard to make the bend at the end. I guess I could have relocated the hanger rack 4-5 inches, but that would requre teh dissasembly of the entire front and rear seats and pulling back of carpeting to get to the bolts and drill new ones.
I hope I can get some of the noise under control, but it 1) doesn't sound ricey at all 2) doesn't bang the floor 3) Most importantly, gives me a nice boost throughout the powerband and enables me to rev up quicker.
Making your own exhaust.
: anyone's gotta admire the work and effort. I don't know many people who'd take the time to DIY on a project like that. I wish I had a welder.. I'd have fun 
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