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professional install on uppipe?

3K views 19 replies 14 participants last post by  turmic 
#1 ·
I inherited an 02' WRX wagon, which I have already replaced the exhaust myself (turbo back). Should I have a professional install my uppipe? It seems some people have had some issues post install with power, boost etc...
 
#6 ·
If you did the downpipe yourself, you should be able to acess the uppipe too... Good luck and damn intrepid, that's a serious amount of time working on your car! Longest I have worked was from 7pm till 9:30pm installing a header on brothers Acura integra..... And Hondas are easy to work on! jeeze 9 hours installing the DP? What made it so hard?
 
#8 ·
A couple things I learned from doing mine. You should buy an offset wrench for the o2 sensor. Buy it before you start and you won't be tempted to waste two hours trying to get it out with vise-grips or some such nonsense. Also don't be squimish about raising your motor a bit to get some clearance. Get new studs for the new UP. It is not a good idea trying to reuse/extract the old ones. Get a complete exhaust gasket kit as you will need several gaskets, not just the two at the UP. I'm sure there are other things I learned but i forgot what.
 
#9 ·
My two cents is use OEM gaskets everywhere, the ones that come with aftermarket UP's and DP's are usually crappy laminated ones, and they will fail (ask me how I know, D'oh !!)

+1 on the o2 sensor advice, it's a pain. I bent a wrench just for that task, but you can buy one with the correct angle too. Having done that job twice, I can tell you, plan on a bit of a long day (4-6 hrs) and have a fresh can of PB blaster ready. Be careful with the banjo fittings for the turbo cooling lines too, they can be brittle.

Heat wrap the UP and DP and use the turbo heat shield, even if you have to modify it to fit, as heat soak robs our cars of power. ...guess that might've been more than two cents worth, huh ?

'02 wagons rule !
 
#10 ·
there are 4 or 5 gaskets you need just for the up pipe install. and yes jacking up the engine definetly helps. i have a cobb turbo heat sheild and it looks good and dose it's job. the biggest probum i had was with the heat sheild on the stock up pipe and manifold as it gets in the way of everything. also you might want to be ready to bu a new egt sensor as they fuse into the up pipe and mine snaped when i tryed to take it out. and yes a fresh bottle of blaster is a great thing to have but i suggest using some on the th day before you start wrking on ittoo. sorry for the long post.

YES 02 WAGONS DO RUL!
 
#11 ·
I did mine myself with a lift and hand tools . If its your first its gonna take you a good portion of the day , but its doable . Not as hard as it is time consuming .

5pm till 2 am for a DP ?!?!?! Sometimes you gotta know when to just give up . Shouldnt take more than an hour .
 
#14 ·
+1 for factory gaskets. You can purchase a complete set from vendors such as flatirons tuning.
+1 for PB Blaster used the day before.
I did the up pipe, down pipe, spark plugs, steering rack bushings, cat back, and the fuel filter all at the same time. I would say it took me about 15 hours all together but I could do it all again in about half that. I did not have to remove the banjo bolts on the turbo, maybe I had extra room since I pulled a lot of stuff before I put the up pipe back in.

02 wagons rule.
 
#15 ·
It's an easy DIY, just time consuming. We just did one last week on a friends car. We are total N00bs, and with beer, grabbing dinner, and lots of BS'ing, we had it done in about 8 hours. We used Perrin's directions, which we barely used. It's not that hard, just have a good workspace.
 
#16 ·
Actually it was the downpipe. and i had no air tools.
the car was up on jack stands. so i had very little leverage in getting it to disconnect from the cat back. not sure if its common practice or not but, the cat-back was connected with these spring bolts and it was pretty rough getting them off. at one point i busted the head clean off of the bolt.
When i was unbolting the OEM DP from the tubro. i wound up taking out one of the studs. the one on the bottom of the dp if i remember correctly. so with only a few inches of movement it took a long time to get it off. and to put it back on.
And after it was all said and done. the POS custom cat-back didn't line up with the Invidia DP. and it had about a 1 mm gap in the connection after the gasket was in place. It made a pretty cool sound too.
Pretty much fought tooth and nail with damn near every bolt i had to take off.
the next day i had it put into an exhaust shop to fix the leak. they cut on the flange section and welded in a 3" pipe and made it all one piece. i was ok with it at time. but i now realize i should have at least had them put a flex pipe in to allow for movement. and now the up-pipe is going to be a complete pain in the ass to install since you would have to drop the entire exhaust system to get the work done. So when the up-pipe comes in next week. i'm having another exhaust shop. (third shop is a charm right?) put the flex piece in, fix the cat-back where the first guy messed up. (thats another story, in short. exhaust rattles off rear-diff) and install the UP. hopefully then the car gods won't be so pissed at me any more.
 
#17 ·
Good luck with the uppipe install man.

My advice would be, no matter how bad you want to start it, dont start ripping your car apart after an 8 hour shift at work. i did that and got so fed up with myself by the end of 4 hours i was almost ready to cry. the next day i went into my garage and got more work done in an hour then i did all day before hand. There wasnt really an easy part to this install. I did have to nip my heat sheild quite a bit on some areas. i cut out the o2 senor bit so i could put the senor back in without the heat sheild there. that made life a little better since i just used a wrench :D

And last but not least, allow for some TLC time for your bloody knuckles. You will probably bang up each one of your knuckles on this install. But good luck once again. If you have any questions PM me ill be more than happy to help ya out.
 
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