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During the week i received my 3" split dump/front pipe and High Flow Cat (catco) from BATMBL.

Decided id give it a go at fitting it myself.

So i started by removing the sensor that is screwed into the cat. Next the bolts that hold the original cat to the cat back system and the bolts from the cat to the original front pipe can be removed. (16mm ring spanner)

Once this is done the cat can be removed.

Next was to remove the front pipe from the dump there are only 3 bolts holding these 2 items together but are very friggen tight, so either use a rattle gun or a piece of pipe on the end of a ratchet to get better leverage to loosen these bolts.

Next you need to get out from under the car and move to the top of the bonnet, now the O2 sensor needs to be removed, all you need to do is unclip the wiring which is a plug easy to find just follow the wires from the O2 sensor to the plug. Now get a shifter or open ended spanner and loosen the O2 sensor (wasnt very tight).

Next you need to remove the heat sheild from the turbo.

There are about 6 or so 10mm bolts holding the heat sheild on which can be seen by looking in between the strut tower and the turbo (when removing these bolts make sure your car has cooled down).

Once the heat sheild and brackets are removed you now have access to the bolts that are holding the dump pipe to the turbo.

There are 4 13mm bolts and 2 13mm nuts holding the dump pipe on, you will need to hop back under the vehicle to gain access to the to nuts which are relatively easy to get to and get loose. The other 4 bolts you will be able to get access to from the top of the bonnet, i found it was easier for me to go down to repco and buy a 13mm ratchet ring spanner to get these bolts off save a lot of time and makes life a whole lot easier.

Unfortunately one of the middle bolts broke off whilst undoing it, so next time i send my car to the mechanic i will be getting him to fix this. Which means removing the turbo and drilling it out. So i think i will go a stainless manifold at the same time this gets repaired as the turbo has to come off anyway.

Once you have removed the dump pipe get some 800 or 1000 emery paper and scrape/sand all the gunk (gasket goo) off the back of the turbo housing.

Once the surface is clean and dry, check and make sure all your bolts fit through you new dump pipe properly, i noticed on mine that 1 of the bolts i could not get through its hole because the split part of the new pipe (bit that comes from the back of the wastegate) and the bolt being the length it was could not be angled through. So back down to repco it was for me to find a smaller bolt 20mm fitted perfectly (better to take down the new dump and check for yourself).

Whilst you are at repco if you dont already have some buy some exhaust cement i think is what it is called, if you think that you can get away with some average gasket goo used for rocker covers or the like you are wrong and for the sake of $5 and the possibility of getting an exhaust leak and having to go through this whole process again, you are better off just getting some.

Now you should have all neccesary tools and bolts and goo to finish off the job.

Clean off the origninal gasket which goes between the dump and the turbo (if the gasket is broken and stuffed better off getting a new one) make sure it is dry when finished cleaning.

Before you go ahead with the next step check to make sure your dump pipe is going to fit nicely but test fitting it on the back of the turbo. Unfortunately Mine did not allign properly so i had to drill out the holes where the bolts in the dump pipe went through so the bolts aligned with the holes in the turbo housing.

Now get your exhaust goo (read the instructions before opening packet as all goo`s are different) Squeeze some either onto your finger or straight onto your gasket and apply a nice even layer around the whole gasket, once you have done this you can put the gooed side straight onto the back of the turbo.

Now do the same thing but squeeze the goo onto the dump pipe facing.

You may need 2 people to get the new dump pipe alligned as you will need one person underneath the car o lift the new pipe up and allign it onto the 2 threads sticking out the back of the turbo housing while the person at the top of the car screws the bolts through the new pipe into the turbo housing.

Once you get all the bolts screwed on as far as you can by fingers you can go ahead and evenly tighten up all the bolts nice and firm.

You can now go ahead and screw you O2 sensor back in and connect it up, and if you like you can put your heat shield back on (i left mine off).

BEFORE YOU PUT THE CAT ON MAKE SURE YOU CHECK TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE IT THE RIGHT WAY!

ie: the hole for the sensor goes towards the back of the car on the passenger side.

Next is the the highflow cat, back under the car clean the surface of the cat back once again make sure it is dry once finished cleaning. The new cat came with new gaskets for between the the dump and thr cat and for between the cat and the cat back.

Once again you may need 2 people to make life easier, now apply your exhaust goo to the end of the dump a nice even layer again and same goes for the cat, now put your gasket in between and you can hold the 2 together while putting the bolts through and finger tighten the nuts on the end.

Apply the goo to the other end of the cat and to the cat back (even layer again) put your gasket in between, hold the cat together with the cat back while someone else puts the bolts through and does the nuts up finget tight again.

Now you can go ahead and retighten all the bolts with a spanner pretty sure i used a 16mm ring spanner, once all the bolts are done up nice and tight screw the sensor back in.

Now your done. All i did now was start and run the car until it was at normal operating temperature then i turned it off let it cool down a little bit then went back over all the bolts just too make sure none of them had come loose!

If i have left anything out feel free to tell me, and if i remember something that should be in there ill add it later.

Cheers Simon :P

If i have left anything out feel free to tell me, and if i remember something that should be in there ill add it later.

Cheers Simon >_<

Excellent write up, does it pick up a little faster? when living in new zealand i took out my cat and smashed the guts out then bolted it back in, it may not have made it spool up faster, but it was louder and it backfired a whole lot more... oh the joys of the RB motors

Hey guys thanks heaps for the positive comments.

Yeah sorry about the no pic thing but i was at my mums house and i didnt have my camera with me unfortunately and i didnt even think to take it with me before i left.

I definately think it spools up faster and it also feels faster overall. The spool is also a lot louder in my opinion.

I would have loved to have had a chance to get it dynoed before and after, but unfortunately like a lot of people i am on a budget and just thought it would be better for me to get it all dynoed once i have done a few more mods ie: fmic, pod or high flow air box filter etc...

Simon

yea i had to push/bend my aircon line bracket and pipe.. so very tight fit atm..

Will have to move it somewhere else hopefully and heat wrap the wastegate pipe up.

i got a quote to relocate mine .. approx $550-$600 :) because the condesor (i think thats the right name) would need to be moved back. Dont ask me why it would cost so much. I opted to just buy a bell mouth dump ..much cheaper and hopefully i can sell the split to someone that can use it n make some $$ back :O

  • 2 months later...

you said you bolts wouldnt fit? mine fitting and lined up with the holes no worrys just i couldnt get ANY tool in there to tighten it. i was thinking a smaller hex head say from 13 mm to 10mm?

my car is a 32 and it was a front and dump combined.

you said you bolts wouldnt fit? mine fitting and lined up with the holes no worrys just i couldnt get ANY tool in there to tighten it. i was thinking a smaller hex head say from 13 mm to 10mm?

my car is a 32 and it was a front and dump combined.

you guys can't get away with not having the cat, im taking mine out.. anyone know if you can just disconect the sensor does the ECU need it?

  • 2 weeks later...
you said you bolts wouldnt fit? mine fitting and lined up with the holes no worrys just i couldnt get ANY tool in there to tighten it. i was thinking a smaller hex head say from 13 mm to 10mm?

my car is a 32 and it was a front and dump combined.

Thats probably coz he's got a stagea

  • 1 month later...
Next you need to get out from under the car and move to the top of the bonnet, now the O2 sensor needs to be removed, all you need to do is unclip the wiring which is a plug easy to find just follow the wires from the O2 sensor to the plug. Now get a shifter or open ended spanner and loosen the O2 sensor (wasnt very tight).

It's alot easier to just unclip the 02 sensor and continue to remove the pipe. Once the pipe is off then you can unscrew the 02 sensor on a benchtop or vice using a spanner and not a chatty shifter. Much better on the sensor and your knuckles

I too installed the split dump form batmbl today but had no issues with bolts lining up or an air con line but im getting the feeling that the wastegate pipe was prolly on the other side once upon a time but the design has been changed.

Anyhoo two things i noticed on install today is that the o2 sensor position was much lower than the original dump and my stock o2 sensor cable was to short to reach. This didnt really effect me as i had a nice new NTK sensor ($92 from burson automotive) which has about 6 or 7cm more length.

The second thing i discovered was that the flange at the turbo end wasnt as thick as the stock item. What this caused was the heat shield bracket to be out of place. There are two options here. You either use washes to make the bracket move further away and back into allignment, or do as i did and just file the heatshields current holes a bit wider so the screws lined up again.

The lower 02 position I think is due to the 02 sensor hitting the exhaust manifold. There are alot of split dumps around that have this problem. UAS sold me a mild steel one and it couldn’t fit because of the above. Luckily that had another stainless pipe from a Stagea where the wastegate pipe travelled down the opposite site of the front pipe so the 02 sensor bung could be mounted pointing towards the side fender. UAS did the failed and successful install and still charged me for the first hour's attempt for the first split dump. Wasn’t really happy about that but was already late for a HITMAN tune so I did not have the time to argue. 2 Hours labour charged to install a split is a faken rort…especially when the first hour was wasted on a shitty product that UAS sell and endorse (and 100+ p/hour labour is stoopid too)

Sorry for the diatribe…I’m over it now

Just remembered a 3rd thing that i had an issue with.

where the dump pipe meets the cat there is a bracket that comes from the floor and uses the two bolts that hold the front pipe and cat together. the fact that i was installing slightly bigger piping than the stock wasnt really too much of an issue but the size of the welds on the flange meant that the bracket wouldnt pull up flush enough.

so i ended up grinding the bracket prolly 6mm bigger all around, which still wasnt a perfect fit but it at least made the two holes where the bolts go though to pull up nice and flush keeping the seal tight between the cat and dump.

Just remembered a 3rd thing that i had an issue with.

where the dump pipe meets the cat there is a bracket that comes from the floor and uses the two bolts that hold the front pipe and cat together. the fact that i was installing slightly bigger piping than the stock wasnt really too much of an issue but the size of the welds on the flange meant that the bracket wouldnt pull up flush enough.

so i ended up grinding the bracket prolly 6mm bigger all around, which still wasnt a perfect fit but it at least made the two holes where the bolts go though to pull up nice and flush keeping the seal tight between the cat and dump.

Yea I had to do that to mine too

"There are 4 13mm bolts and 2 13mm nuts holding the dump pipe on, you will need to hop back under the vehicle to gain access to the to nuts which are relatively easy to get to and get loose"

Tried installing mine today, cat, and cat back exhaust was a breeze, but the dump and front pipe is tricky, i took the yurbo heat sheild off, but trying to get to the bolts holding the dump and the turbo together are tricky, I'll give it another go, after that i'm taking it down the shop!!!!

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