Hi, I have an 02 Bugeye, and discovered today that the blow on the exhaust is from the pipe that runs from the header to the turbo. Can anyone advise me on the ease, time and best way to go about doing it. Having looked at it, it looks very awkward getting to the bolts on the turbo ? Also would it be worth changing it to the decat up pipe and the manifolds to new stainless items seeing as they seem so reasonable on ebay
?

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

 

Hi replaced the up pipe on my 2005 wrx 2 years ago and found the best way to do it was to remove the downpipe and the turbo and lift the uppipe through the top. I would personally fit decat as the cats tend to break up and destroy the turbo as for the headers would not buy off eBay as you get what you pay for and no benefit to you changing them unless of course they are blowing too. Hope this helps and good luck.

 

Avoid the eBay cheapies... will undoubtedly have a negative effect on flow and probably cost you power.

Decatting the uppipe for a stock STI, classic or Hawkeye one is worthwhile but without a remap afterwards, there is a slight danger of running lean and/or over-boosting. Plenty have done it with no issues though so not all doom and gloom but you won't gain any real power from it without a remap.

Oh, and yes it is a bit of a fiddly job (around 2 hours for a garage) but if yours is blowing anyway, then you'll either need to replace the pipe or gaskets anyway.

 

They are a pain to replace. Best person to advise you & supply the parts you need is Harvey, drop him a PM.

 

In my experience, find someone who knows what they are doing and pay them to do the job!

 

Harvey says it should all be done from underneath and you must spray every nut or bolt with WD-40 the night before and on the morning you are doing the job. Sometimes the job takes 2 hours and sometimes it can take twice that if the nuts are rounded or stuck on.
Harvey's uppipes are stainless steel, slip jointed and he matches the exact uppipe to the turbo in use so he has various designs for different turbos and cost with heat wrapping and new studs is £139. If you do a search on here you can see what people think about them and I think the choice of headers and uppipe of the right type is very important.

Swapping uppipe.
Drop the D/P.
Undo the bolts, headers to uppipe.
Loosen but do not remove three nuts on each header to cylinder head.
Now undo the nuts holding the uppipe. 5# in total if they are all there.
Remove U/P.
If it will not come loosen the two bolts, collector to the rest of headers/cross pipe and it will fly out.
Alternative : Least preferred option.
If it will not come out with lots of twisting, slack engine mountings. Do not totally undo. Jack engine and pipe drops out.
Try to get pipe out first before undoing mountings for engine.
I hope this helps you. Dawn.