Centering mufflers

**kwimberly** · 01-23-2009 12:18 PM

Just got my 14829's welded on, and I'm not real happy with the alignment. I dropped the car off and went to lunch instead of hovering over the guy while he was doing it. When I got back, of course, he was gone, and I had to get back to work.

I don't have a picture yet, but they are both slightly right of center - toward the middle of the car, and a tad more exposed than I wanted.

Is there a way to do some minor adjustments without having to redo the whole thing?

**Murph** · 01-23-2009 12:32 PM

There's an adjustment between the 2 pipes via an adjustable cross brace near the rear differential. That will take care of lateral adjustment. For length, you can loosen the tailpipe joiner clamps and move a bit maybe. I hope this helps.

**A4natomical** · 01-23-2009 12:41 PM

Yea, just get under there and scope out what you can do.

**kwimberly** · 01-23-2009 12:42 PM

Cool - thanks guys. I'm installing my RS4 rear sway tonight or tomorrow, so I'll check it out when I'm under there.

**widgget** · 01-23-2009 01:06 PM

like was mentioned, use the bracket between the two to adjuct how far apart they are. I had to use a few very large zipties though to get the tips higher since they were hanging to low.

**afozzie40** · 01-23-2009 02:44 PM

i'd use a wire tie or two instead of a plastic zip tie. zip ties last about a week here

**widgget** · 01-23-2009 02:48 PM

these were heavy duty zipties, not normal ones. they were like $3 or $4 each.
been almost a year now, still holding steady and i'm pretty good at getting air off of the frost heaves so it gets a good beating. but yeah, wire would have been just as good and cheaper.

**kwimberly** · 01-24-2009 12:07 PM

Mission Accomplished! Installed the RS4 rear sway and got the mufflers centered by using the bracket. I ended up using the jack from my wife's MDX to spread the pipes apart while I tightened down the nut in the bracket.

Where are you guys running the wire when you raise the exhaust up? It looks like I can loop it around the hangers and then maybe around the rear bumper support?

time for a test drive!

**dirtybrd** · 01-24-2009 12:10 PM

That sway bar will be the tits from what I hear,

**LampyB** · 01-24-2009 05:46 PM

Kevin do you like the sound of your test pipe without an exhaust setup? i would love to get one, but i do a lot of driving for work and once in a while i have my boss in my car. i don't care if it's fairly loud, but is it very loud and/or drone at high speeds???

**kwimberly** · 01-24-2009 07:50 PM

Originally Posted by LampyB

Kevin do you like the sound of your test pipe without an exhaust setup? i would love to get one, but i do a lot of driving for work and once in a while i have my boss in my car. i don't care if it's fairly loud, but is it very loud and/or drone at high speeds???

I think it sounds great. I wasn't looking for anything loud. Honestly, I was just going to buy tips for the look, but I got the 14829's for 200 bucks shipped, so I figured I would try them out. I didn't want the 14851's based on other people saying that they drone and/or were noticeably loud.

I haven't driven over 45 mph today, so I can't comment on high speed sound. When I first turned the car on this morning there was a pretty loud rumble while the car warmed up and dropped from ~1100 rpm down to the normal 800 rpm idle. Once the car was at normal operating temp I couldn't even tell I had new mufflers.

At city speed, I can hear it a little when I jackrabbit from a red light, but it's not obnoxious - it's just right for me.

I have a test pipe, so I don't know how it would sound with a cat still in place.

Oh damn - you asked about the test pipe, not the mufflers! Ok - the test pipe didn't change the sound much at all when I still had the stock mufflers. The most noticeable thing with the test pipe was a bump in performance and the smell.