I got my RB Streetport exhaust off the big brown truck o' fun yesterday. Unpacked it last night and (per direction from RB on the boxes) gave it the serious look over to make sure it wasn't damaged. Well, UPS didn't damage it (it's all there and except for one tiny ding, it looks fine), but there's a hole. Looks like one of the welds on the center section burned through to the interior of the pipe, as there's daylight visible when you look down in there. It's small, but it's there.

I feel kind of bad, because I know that it costs them money to ship this heavy bitch from CA to AL three times just to fix a pinhole in it, but I mean, c'mon. It's several hundred dollars worth of parts, shouldn't it be right the first time?

Poll to come.

 

Need a pic of it.

 

I knew somebody would say that. I can't get a decent picture (tried) because my little point-and-shoot digicam won't focus on anything in the darkness inside the pipe. The hole itself is somewhere on the weld where the two pipes/presilencers are connected together, but I couldn't see it from the outside last night. It's hidden, but it's there. I just happened to notice a little spot of daylight down in the pipe as I was looking in it to see how it's made. Then I verified that it's there by shining my flashlight all around, and sure enough, hole.

It's seriously probably 1mm in size.

 

plug one end and use an air compressor to blow air in the other. This will help you find the hole on the outside. If you are having a shop do the install, show them the hole and have them hit it with the welder.

 

I say call RB and complain. The price of their stuff is too damn high to accept half-assed parts. If they want to supply half-*** parts, they need to charge a half-*** price, not a top quality price.

 

this is what I am leaning toward as well. It'd be different if I bought it used, if it was cheap, or if (if, if, if...)...

 

another thing you could do is try to ask for some sort of refund to repair the job. I wouldn't pay its repair. Either send it back or get a refunf to cover the cost of repair.

 

^^^ I agree just see if they will give some type of partial refund to help cover the instal or repair. It does not sound like smething that would take more then 2 minutes to repair with a welder.

And just think about the time it will take for the part to be shipped back and then have it shipped again to you.

 

When I got my cat pipe welded to a certain spot.

A tiny hole about the size of a pencil tip made it through.

You can tell it has an exhaust leak because of the small hole.

Either get it fixed or send it back, its not fun to drive around with a exhaust leak.

 

wrigh003,

Call 'em and tell 'em the problem. They will probably want you to e-mail pictures of the defect. Be pleasant but firm. For that amount of money you deserve satisfaction.

I thought I was the only one that had a bad (though eventually resolved) experience with RB. Maybe they just send the defects to those of us in Alabama?

The story: My son took the 1983 RX-7 and the newly arrived RB exhaust to a friends house. They removed the original system and mounted the header. That's as far as they got because the presilencer would not attach. He drove home with only a header (and a headache for two days). In their excitement, they never pre-assembled and test-fit the new parts before removing the old...but that's another story.

The header was malformed and the washer and nut couldn't be attached. Of course, RB just thought I was a moron and could not put a nut on a threaded stud. I assured them that somewhere in my 51 years of life I learned this particular skill. However, they weren't convinced until I sent the following pictures.





That's not all. I told them I was missing a gasket. They promptly mailed my missing gasket.

A week later, after receiving the gasket, and still having questions, I suggested that they include instructions with this expensive purchase. (Like which end of the presilencer goes to the front? Answer: The end with the approx 2" inner sleeve.) They promptly mailed my missing instructions.

A week later, after reading the instructions, I pointed out that they never sent the required (1981-83 only) "strap supplied" referred to in the instructions. They promptly mailed my "strap". It didn't fit. They said "it must just be my car".

In the meantime, I received a new header and returned the deformed one.

Through all these many phone calls I always talked to a guy at RB named "Kermit" and he eventually worked through all the problems. He even sent us a couple of RB t-shirts for our trouble (and for not suing them - his words, not mine).

So anyway, I'm happy with the product (now) and even just ordered the "UFO looking" air cleaner/filter from them.

Don't give up. You deserve a quality product. Good luck! (and I'm not being sarcastic).

DD

 

RB recently increased their prices. Too bad they didn't inform their quality control department..........

 

I said it once and I'll say it a billion times more RB is crap. They are Ford with Mercades prices. Bullshit... You buy ford cause they've been around so long they must be good right. The only RB thing I run is the 3" downpipe cause it's priced equal to the quality unlike one other thing in their entire inventory... RB is not Kia by anymeans, but they sure aren't BMW either. They're just any typical American company charging premium prices for middle of the road products.

 

They cross threaded one of the nuts onto the stud on my presilencer and ruined the threads. I was able to fix this enough to install the system because I didn't want to wait for a new part. Everything else was okay though. I'm pretty happy with my system, but not the price. If I had to do it again, I would take a better look at Mindtrain exhaust systems...

 

For all the prices thrown around I wonder why people don't just engineer their own exhaust systems. Sounding nicer and flowing better all for cheaper. It should be what everone strives for.

Exhaust is singlehandedly the most important mod one can do, imo. Because its also one of the first impressions someone gets from your car. Now I sound like a ricer, damn. Back to installing pushbutton starts I go!

 

I agree. It's not exactly rocket science after all. The biggest problem I have is that in Michigan, they can't even touch your exhaust unless the cats are in place. So as far as having a system built locally, they won't do it. Another problem is knowing what parts are going to stand up to the heat of the exhaust.

 

I have the same problem here with the whole cats bullshit.

But just by looking around Summit Racing and some other places you have plenty of options to cheaply make an amazing exhaust system for less than $200 after you buy a used header.

 

for the whole catalytic converter, you can ask some of the places to mark the installement as a "Racing Application" Then they don't screwed and you'll have your own fabbed up ... i know because this is what i had to do to mine.

 

Racing beat sucks.

I've had a problem with everything I've bought from them.

$100 forum bucks says they make you pay return shipping.

Last time I bought a carb from them (a $1,000 setup) the damn thing didn't work. I had to pay for shipping back to them AND give them an extra $50 for them to send me one that did.

Make them make it right.

 

Wow. This post sure brought out the "Racing Beat Sucks" crowd. I am planning on calling them this afternoon. The header and rear section both look great- the center section looks like it was put together by somebody in a junior high auto shop class with My First Welder.

I'll post up what happens. They screwed up and sent me the wrong brake lines when I bought all this stuff a couple weeks ago, they sent me the right set and a UPS call tag (they pay shipping) for that mixup, I'm hoping they do the same here.

I guess we'll see.

 

I don't know if I qualify as a "Racing Beat Sucks" crowd member or not.
I just don't think their stuff is the only game in town. It's over-rated, over-priced, and lacking in the quality that *should* accompany such high praise and pricing.
I, personally, will never pay their prices, for stuff that I can get elsewhere, for a better cost and quality. I just hate seeing the way many members promote RB as the godsend to all things rotary...........

 

The only thing of their's I will ever buy is their air filters. The foam filters rock and I definately swear by them. Cheaper and flow better than K&N.

I bought their air filter and cannister, only $70 shipped along with a blockoff plate. Not bad, I dig it.

Everything else though... I can do waaay better.

 

I like my racing beat header. If it was not for the catalytic converter exhaust leak, I would enjoy it more.

 

No problems, called them yesterday to see what they had to say. I decided to get it fixed locally and they are going to reimburse me for my trouble and the cost of getting it done. To me, it's a win win- I get the thing up and running faster than sending it out to California to have it fixed and then waiting for it to come back, and they don't have to eat into their profit on the thing shipping it there and back again. I looked at it again last night and found the hole- it's literally just a welder-zap away from being fixed perfectly, and to be perfectly honest, I just happened to notice it as I was looking over the system. If I hadn't been peering down into the pipe to see what it looked like in there, I wouldn't have noticed at all.

Anyway, drama over, I'll be running it by the muffler shop this weekend.

I'll agree that it's not the end-all be-all that I would have expected for the price, but on the other hand, I think it'll be a nice upgrade from the open stock exhaust manifold that I have on the old girl right now.