well, as one can expect with years of use and 90,250 miles of love, the backpressure tube on the ol' GSE-SE has given up the ghosts. busted at the converter. other than welding (its thin and i dont know if it'll work), what are some good ways to replace that little guy? the car is signifigantly slower and i want my poor beast back with his claws sharpened. i just want to make sure i am going about this the right way. im sure you all know how frustrating it is to have a power loss. especially on your favorite 7.

 

buy a header.

 

Use a hi-temp flexible hose like the bonez cat for the gslse. The flange is cut off the backpressure tube and the hose is slipped over this and the tube on the bonez cat which doesn't have a flange. Stainless hose clamps hold it in place. Otherwise go to junk yard for a tube.

 

You don't need it anyways........wire your actuators open. Not hard to do maybe 4 min. time and keep on going.

 

it has nothing to do with a header i'm afraid. let alone the manifold. i have about an inch stub sticking ot of the converter and a metal line that rattles like the devil.

 

Yank it out. That is exactly what I did when I had my straight pipe put in. Reached up and pulled it out. Nothing but a rubber tube holding it on to where it connects to the actuators.

 

My tube has been broke off for awhile now. I'm waiting till I can afford the RB system. RB's pre-silencer has the attaching flange for the split-air tube. I really wished their silencer was a direct bolt on to the stock manifold. It could be made to work with a extension pipe.
If you have emission testing in Oh, I'd recommend the Bonez cat with silencer. I believe it's a direct bolt-on and around $245.00.

 

i am eventually going to go with the RB dual pipe system. it has the bung for the o2 sensor and the tube on the pre silencer. but until then, i have to make due. the car feels gutless.

 

There is a way to run the 6-port acutators off either the airpump or with a RPM activation switch.

 

i did a search for the way to wire them open. i was unsuccesful. mostly 2nd gen stuff. maybe someone can redirect me....

 

I bought a new one from the dealer.

Right on.

PS: Isn't your car obnoxiously loud with the exhaust leak? Mine was.

 

Same thing was wrong with mine when I purchased it in Feb. but it still had decent power. Replaced with RB header and pre-silencer. Fuel Filter was my problem with sometimes power loss. I'd lose power when getting on it sometimes. Replaced fuel filter and that problem went away. Installed Header/Pre and removed rats nest. What a difference!!!!!

 

IF you will folow your tube up, it will lead you to the actuators. All you need to do is hold it open with one hand and use a wire tie with the other to hold it open. There will be two of them. One in the back, the other towards the front. It realy doesn't affect the power enough to even feel it in the lower RPM's, but you will notice it over 3800. They don't open till around there anyways so it doesn't hurt the motor at all to do this. Some guys have taken them out instead. Either way.

 

yeah, i remember that way. i just dont want it to feel "rigged" but i may do it since i have it apart today, fixing the oil cooler and replacing the lines.

 

I put a plastic tee in the air pump hose and ran a new hose to the the actuators. This caused the ports to open too early so I got two springs from a hardware store and put them over the plungers on the ports themselves. This added some resistance.With a little trial and error I got them to open at 3300 rpm. Under 5 bucks, assuming you still have your air pump.

 

do you have any pics?

 

sorry no pics, we don't seem to be able to post pics on here. The tee came from advance auto parts. I just took off the air pump hose and made a hole with a drill bit and stuck the tee through. Make the hole small so you have a tight fit. The springs were bought at TSC, which is a farm/home store in our part of the world. They are about one half inch in diameter and three quarters of an inch long. I played with the length to where when the ports are closed, the spring just barely touches on top and bottom. You might search my old posts because when I did this I posted the name brand of the springs and the part #. Without the springs they opened a about 2000 rpm.