urquattrogus
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I thought some people might be interested in this as I have gone for Sports cats, Centre Section and Rear boxes on a 3200, not so many people seem to have done this.
Unfortunately I forgot about link pipes, so used my existing ones.
There was some confusion over the sealing rings as Larini only supply one set, and it turns out there are two different sizes (with almost identical part numbers), I needed to use a rear set on their centre section.
The two at the bottom are centre section size, and the one at the top is a rear one. They have different internal diameter's by just a few mm and are of different depth.
Here is before:
During:
And After:
As expected undoing the manifold to cats bolts was a ***** of a job, it needed lots of releasing agent and plenty of patience. I had to use quite a combination of long extensions and knuckle joints, cranked spanners etc.
It is the first time they've been off since the car was new, and they have been heated a lot, so no surprise really!
The other annoying thing is that my car has 4 lambda probes, with both upstream and downstream being fitted. I think the top two were quite new, but the downstream ones looked to be rather old.
I decided to cut off the top two (could have taken them off if only another pair of hands!) and go for 4 new ones at the same time. Managed to get some new Bosch for reasonable money ones by shopping around.
Once the sports cats where on it was relatively straight forward, but lining up the rear boxes is a complete PITA. I have gone one nice and true, but the other is not quite right yet. I suspect it's mostly due to the fact my link pipes don't move very well around the centre join.
So how does it sound and perform??
Before I had the standard system with straight rear pipes, and it did sound pretty good, especially at idle. It was fairly quiet when you floored it.
The new system sounds similar at idle, but wow it has a lot more of a bark to it under heavy load!
It's now part spitfire part mini NASCAR when you floor it, I'd bet it sounds much better from outside, ideally want to get a video.
Most of all, there is definitely more kick. It really pulls in the mid range now, butt dyno says easily 15-20bhp more and a good torque increase. I may book a rolling road at some stage.
Downside is that it hasn't really reduced the cabin drone much, its maybe a little better, but I still have quite a drone at 2000rpm in 4th gear, which is where the car sits at 40mph or 30mph ish.
I have a video which I will try to upload at some point.
I'm tempted to try another combination though and see what the straight rear pipes sound like with the Larini cats and centre section, may be even louder.
The Larini rear boxes are fairly straight through by the looks of it, and maybe they act as a sound nice resonated chamber. Tempted to try the straight pipes for completeness sake, I also prefer the tip style of the straight pipes as it looks more OEM and they are also lighter to boot.
Unfortunately I forgot about link pipes, so used my existing ones.
There was some confusion over the sealing rings as Larini only supply one set, and it turns out there are two different sizes (with almost identical part numbers), I needed to use a rear set on their centre section.
The two at the bottom are centre section size, and the one at the top is a rear one. They have different internal diameter's by just a few mm and are of different depth.
Here is before:
During:
And After:
As expected undoing the manifold to cats bolts was a ***** of a job, it needed lots of releasing agent and plenty of patience. I had to use quite a combination of long extensions and knuckle joints, cranked spanners etc.
It is the first time they've been off since the car was new, and they have been heated a lot, so no surprise really!
The other annoying thing is that my car has 4 lambda probes, with both upstream and downstream being fitted. I think the top two were quite new, but the downstream ones looked to be rather old.
I decided to cut off the top two (could have taken them off if only another pair of hands!) and go for 4 new ones at the same time. Managed to get some new Bosch for reasonable money ones by shopping around.
Once the sports cats where on it was relatively straight forward, but lining up the rear boxes is a complete PITA. I have gone one nice and true, but the other is not quite right yet. I suspect it's mostly due to the fact my link pipes don't move very well around the centre join.
So how does it sound and perform??
Before I had the standard system with straight rear pipes, and it did sound pretty good, especially at idle. It was fairly quiet when you floored it.
The new system sounds similar at idle, but wow it has a lot more of a bark to it under heavy load!
It's now part spitfire part mini NASCAR when you floor it, I'd bet it sounds much better from outside, ideally want to get a video.
Most of all, there is definitely more kick. It really pulls in the mid range now, butt dyno says easily 15-20bhp more and a good torque increase. I may book a rolling road at some stage.
Downside is that it hasn't really reduced the cabin drone much, its maybe a little better, but I still have quite a drone at 2000rpm in 4th gear, which is where the car sits at 40mph or 30mph ish.
I have a video which I will try to upload at some point.
I'm tempted to try another combination though and see what the straight rear pipes sound like with the Larini cats and centre section, may be even louder.
The Larini rear boxes are fairly straight through by the looks of it, and maybe they act as a sound nice resonated chamber. Tempted to try the straight pipes for completeness sake, I also prefer the tip style of the straight pipes as it looks more OEM and they are also lighter to boot.
