38 replies to this topic

[bcjames]

Hey Ryan, thanks for your input. I would happily pay another £60 to sort my car so I'm not in fear of every speedbump/pothole, humpback bridge!

[greg.harvey]

That kit sounds perfect. It includes a rear box as well, which is handy, because the tail pipe just dropped off our rear box (corrosion at the weld joint - annoying, as there's nothing wrong with the actual box). Out of interest, in that case would you just weld the tail pipe back on to the box, or is it new part time? I still have the pipe, it dragged along behind the car...

Anyway, I digress. Something else just occurs to me, looking at dmdangermouse's photos I have an extra bit. I seem to have the "two box" system Mini Spares talks about, like mini 4o in post #4 of this topic - I have a second muffler straight after the cat (though mine is much larger than mini 4o's) which dmdangermouse's car appears to completely lack. Does this change what I need to buy at all? And if the middle muffler is taken out completely, does it really make much difference (because that's another great piece of tin to grind on the road we could do without!) ...

[dmdangermouse]

Thats only because i opted to have 1 silencer insted of 2.
Its upto you really. I like the sound with just one.

[greg.harvey]

Hmmm, given we are likely to do a reasonable amount of long motorway runs, probably best to keep the two mufflers. The one mini 4o has looks perfect, same size as the cat, tucks right up under the car. Might have to take a view on that once I see how far off the ground we can get the one we have...

[Danny_California]

My exhaust has always been pretty low, and last MOT the flexi joint was leaking and I had the garage weld in a straight piece as a bodge for the test. I had planned to get a custom exhaust made up but funds took a dive just after that! So Im still waiting for the money to have one made up to fit the tunnel as close as possible for maximum ground clearance.

[greg.harvey]

I've bought the Maniflow middle and back box - will get them fitted next week, I hope!

[greg.harvey]

Took a while longer than expected to get the exhaust fitted, mainly because it took us ages to get the car down to the mechanic, but the Maniflow exhaust is now on.

Firstly, it sounds great!

On a more practical note, it also now misses the nasty hump in to our driveway and most speed bumps. Hurrah! Can finally drive the Mini without fear of scattering exhaust components around remote villages. (And it passed a CT - French MOT - on Tuesday, so obviously bashing the cat on a metal spike set in concrete hasn't made too much difference. *phew*)

Mechanic said at some point it would be worth replacing the cones and that would make a huge difference.

[greg.harvey]

Gah, it's doing it again!

Not sure if the rubber mounting thingies (that's a technical term) have sagged after a few weeks or if our suspension is slowly worsening, but the car now grounds out again entering the driveway. *sigh*
It's fine on most speed humps, but our driveway is a real b*stard.

New cones it is, I reckon.

[bcjames]

Hey Greg, I missed your previous post, but I'm glad you had it sorted for a short while at least

My car is now somewhat driveway and speed bump proof. I have changed the rear exhaust bushes to poly, so they can't sag, and with new cones and hilos have used Rover press photos to approximate the ride height of a standard late car. There is still one little bridge into my friends property that I can't get over, but the a4 catches there as well so I don't take it personally! There's so little option with the MPi exhaust that the only real way to get more clearance is to raise the car up.

I still take the bumps slowly, for the sake of my car and passengers, but it's so nice being able to drive around without the fear of speed bumps in the back of my mind!