just a question, but do you have to lift the engine to get the precat off? And do you have to do the same to put on a downpipe, or can you just lift the car up on a rack and take it off and switch them out from there?

 

just jack the front end of your car up. that should do it. and take off the intake hoses so you can get to the two studs on the top. you'll see two from the top and one from the bottom. the last one if i remember correctly you'll have to feel around for. i sprayed the studs with kroil and they weren't a problem. i was suprised at how easy it was to get the pre-cat off. nick

 

No engine hoist required.

Some cars are easy, some are tough. The heat from these engines can almost "weld" the nuts on the studs. Be sure to use a six point socket, and lube it up first.

Good luck, Adam

 

Cool Thanks. Yeah some guy that was fixing my car told me the bullshit lie of how he had to hoist the engine up to get the precat off! I thought that it sounded wierd cause I've never heard of that before! That piece of crap lied to me and I'm gonna tear his head OFF! j/k, well thanks a lot guys.

 

It is a pain in the *** but I would take off the Y-pipe. It gives you a LOT more room to get your hands in there.

 

ok, I'm not sure if I want to go through that much trouble. But I can try to do whatever I can to get that ugly @$$ precat off my car so I can put up the DP.

 

If you haven't done any major work before on an FD, you probably don't want to start on DP install. It took me about 6 hrs to do with lots of breaks in btwn. Do a search so you know what you are getting into.

Otherwise, pay someone reputable that has done these many times on FD to do it.

Most important of all, don't break the stud or get a DP that requires stub removal. If you do, you'll be screwed. Doing the job slower is better than ending up taking off the exhaust manifold if you mess up.

 

i agree with djant.

i started off trying to do my downpipe and after about an hour and half i realized that its really hard to do unless you've done it before or have experience doing it.

if you live in norcal you can call a guy named ivan at 7300567 and he'll do it for about 200. trust me... its worth it and he'll check out other things on your car for you too.

 

I have one other thing to say:

PB Blaster!!

 

Not to discourage anyone being hands on, just don't do it as a first job on an FD. Research and know what you are up against before busting things up. Good luck

 

yeah I figured something like that. I am going to take it to someone.......cause god knows what'll happen if I get under the car! Anyways it'll give me a chance to find someone that lives close to me that would be able to work on my car. Thanks.

 

do it yourself. it's really not that hard at all. i was worried when i first start mine that i wouldn't be able to do it (it was my first job also) but i did it. even had to grind down the nuts on the stud to make it work. doing things yourself will also make you feel good about it, sort of an accomplishment. i also did the fuel filter. it took me a little longer than most guys, but i got it done w/ no problems. learning to work on your own car is the best thing.
nick

 

Yeah I do want to do it myself now, and it would give me more experience with working on my car too. Hey I have to start somewhere and I have to work on it at somepoint why not now? And I am really good at doing things myself, I fix all my friends cars and my parents and even my old Mustang (which sux ***** and is really slow). I do a lot of things on my own and would love to tackle this one too! I think I'll start on a weekend and make it a day project cause it may take me a while, but it is my first time and It'll get done just slower than a pro.

 

My advice: park the car where you are going to do the work tomorrow night after work. Pull as much of the peripherals as you can as the car is cooling down. This is the intake and all attendant hoses, the ABS sheild (DO IT! SOOOOO much easier...). For the shield, pull the two 12mm bolts that are on top of the shield, the 12 mm bolt that sits in front of the ABS unit (NOT the one that attatches to the inner fender, the other one), and the one (12 mm) in the rear of the unit. Lift up pretty hard on the unit (lift it by the engine side brake line block, NOT the brake lines) and wiggle the shield loose.

If you can, jack the car front up and try and remove the heat shields around the pipes tomorrow night. If you do all this, you can soak all the nuts in PBBlaster (OMFG does that stuff WORK!!) with the nuts still warm (allows deeper penetration... no, of the lubricant....this is getting bad!) and this will aid immesurably in the dissasembly process. Also spray the pre-cat (really a front pipe...) to main cat nuts on the bottom of the car. Soak them about three times before you go to bed. When you start on Sat morning, things will go much quicker.

I was lucky. My turobos were replaced 15K mi ago, so everything was pretty loose anyway, and I had the pre-cat off in two hours. Studs too. But I'm the exception here, it seems....

This really shouldn't be terribly tough for a first project if you've wrenched before, especially if you've done exhaust work. But expect 4 to 6 hours anyway, then you'll be pleased when it takes less time! An hour or two is unrealsitic unless you've doen it before and/or the nuts are all loose. I like to keep 'em tight, though... oops! Make sure you have a torque wrench...

 

Yeah soak the studs that go to the main cat as well.

 

I have it all. Thanks for the advice, where can I get this PBBlaster stuff, everyone is saying it's the best stuff. Once I get that I will do what you said and let it soak overnight or so and then I will get to work on taking those NUTS off! Once those are off it should be fairly easy to get the DP on. The only thing I really have to worry about is getting the bolts back on really tight! That will be the HARD part for me, but that's not hard at all. I'm just emphasizing that this will be fairly easy for me, except it WILL take me a few hours to do all of this even though I have done exhaust work in the past I'm not Super Man!

 

I bought my last van of PB blaster at Wal-Mart:

Here is a pic:

 

cool, thanks for the pic. That really helps.