My old midpipe broke at a rear flange so it was time to upgrade. Used a split flange from Autozone as fix until the Random system arrived. Box appeared to have been opened by the shipper and pipes removed for inspection. They were removed from the plastic bag then shoved back into the box, peanuts poured back in and the plastic bag stuffed in on top. Now there are peanut fragments down in the cats. Gotta figure out how to remove them. Also a layer of gritty welding and grinding residue is in the inlet pipes to the cats. Gotta figure out how to swab that out as well. Worried that crap will impair the coating on the substrate. Pipes look good. Welding is nice except for one O2 bung not perpendicular to the pipe axis. Air gap between bung and pipe hole was filled with a big blob of stainless weld bead. Some protrusion into the pipe but no further than the bung already protrudes. Doesn't look bad but the other side is beautiful. Worried the off angle of the bung may push the O2 sensor up against the tunnel but have to test fit to be sure. Cats are small and sexy looking and downstream of the originals. They are maybe 1.5" larger diameter than the pipes. Hope they don't radiate extra heat into the torque tube tunnel. Maybe have to install a heat shield panel over the torque tube tunnel cover if they do and it is objectionable. Unit is split past the O2 sensor bungs but before the X-pipe with slip joints so it is not a one piece unit. X-pipe looks just like a Corsa unit with pipes bent to meet each other, ground flat at the intersection and joined with a butt weld. Rear flanges are welded to the pipes on the interior flange interface so no weld appears on the outside. Flange bolt holes aren't threaded, which seems to be common practice and of little concern to me. Two stainless nuts and compression washers will solve that. No stainless exhaust pipe clamps or any other hardware were included. Anyone in the Dallas area have a good source for stainless clamps? I have no digital cam so can't post pictures. If anyone in the Dallas area wants to drop by and snap them before I install next weekend, reply and we can get together.

 

Too bad you cant post a picture, there isnt much information about this cat/x-pipe setup.

Eric

 

Who is installing? I'd like to drop by and see the progress. Won't be back in town 'til the weekend anyway.

 

Do it myself. This is a minute steak compared to something like pulling the tranny. I was a mechanic for twenty years and ran my own shop for ten of that. I will probably spend more time jacking up the car, finding the stainless hardware and stopping for cigar/whiskey breaks than actually replacing the pipe assembly. It will be more like recreation than work. Gotta love it.

 

I may be going with a similar setup, using the Random's in a couple weeks. I'd be curious what changes (like sound and hp/tq) you get. Keep us up to date. :cheers:

 

I'm pretty sure Eug has these on his car. Check out his sig. He has a bunch of pictures.

 

Are Random cats a straight through design? :confused:

Very interested to see what your opion of them is. :cheers:

Jim

 

Make sure the O2 bungs are not straight across from each other. You can't install both sensors. The bungs need to be staggered 2 inches....I saw a Rando Tech that was goofed as above and had to have another o2 bung welded onto their pipe.

 

Yep, I got Random techs. No x-pipe though. ARE fabricated merge pipe to my XR1 muffler

Here’re a pic:



and a video of the setup
http://www.corvettegarage.com/users/...stUnderCar.avi (5.8MB)

 

I've been looking for pictures of the bolt-on setup.

Here's the only one I've seen:



That the one for TPIS headers. I would like it a lot better if the pipes were not so close to the tunnel.

Eric

 

Thanks to "onfire" for the bung offset warning. It appears to be about an inch on my setup.

"R Bonus", no brick-type cats have baffles that I have ever seen, so all would be straight through. The improved flow comes from using shorter bricks with thicker catalyst coating to obtain the same catalytic efficiency. Shorter passages through the honeycomb mean less air mass compressed in the brick therefore less backpressure.

"66ImpalaLT1", the posted pictures are accurate. Now have to find some Donaldson preformed stainless band clamps to seal the slip joint without welding.