today i experienced the weirdest thing in the whol world.

driving my car then it got louder. i stopped at a light and sped off again. then i noticed my car got a lot louder, louder in fear of something was breaking. then i stopped at the next light which is 200 ft away. revved lightly (2k rpm difference) then continued to drive again. this time it was louder. as i made my left turn at the light. it got extremely loud and feared my car was breaking down.

pulled over 100ft later to check under my hood. 1st i checked the intake to see if something got sucked in. intake was a OK then i smelled something at the same time i saw down my s-pipe.

huh? looking down the inside of teh s-pipe? OOOOHHH CRAP. my s-pipe is loose and NOT ATTACHED to my AW header.

i used 1 bolt that ZPI gave me and they other side to be a bolt washer nut combo.

this is not to blame ZPI.

just making sure people are aware of my mistake in INSTALL.

i did not use the stock springs, which i believe weas my mistake.

oo ya... i was running only with header and it sounded EXTREMELY LOUD and almost lik a NASCAR or JGTC car! i drove it the next 1 mile like that going 20mph extremely loud so i can park my car at school and fix it. i was late for class.

 

well glad to hear it wasnt zpi's fault. if i were you i woulda jus gone to class and done it later whenever the car was cooled down lol

 

ya i did that
hahaha

i've been tinkin about it and i dont tink i've made any mistake in installing it


the 1st setup =

=========]=====[=====
s-pipe side, flange, header

setup after fixing my loose s-pipe

========]SPRING[=====


now tinking about this, i believe my 2nd setup is incorrect becuase with the springs in between the flanges, its only pushing the pipes away if they were to flex.

compared to stock

======spring][==header

eck you guys know wat im talkin about hopefully.


so the question arises.. was this my fault? everything was installed properly. ieven went to a muffler shop to have it double checked.
then why did my bolts come loose and fall off?

 

Maybe it is partially ZPI's fault because they did not design the pipe to connect to the header using spring loaded bolts the way it is supposed to be. They should have created new bolts that connect the pipe to the header the same way the stock bolts did. It's a industry standard really. They also like to ship the wrong size bolts.

 

From my understanding, the Alphawerks header is the only header that is problematic with the ZPI s-pipe. You should consult ZPI for solutions and THEN post what the fix was so that anyone else with the same combo will know what to do in the event that they have the AW/ZPI s-pipe combo.

 

for all those wit the ZPI s-pipe, how did you guys installed your stuff or how is it installed

 

Talked to zpi. Skip the spring. Bolt the s-pipe directly to the header flang, then where the bolt comes throught the header flange get some nuts to kind of double bolt it to the header where the header flange acts as a nut and the new nut double bolts it. One of mine fell off today and I thought of the same solution. I knew it was going to come loose and did not notice because I just installed my new stereo system and cant hear poopers while testing the settings. ZPI is shipping me new bolts since I lost one of mine. Too bad my gasket looks damaged now.

 

ya my gasket is all tore up.

nice ill call ZPI thx

 

I thought this connection needed flex? Other wise a weld some where may break.

 

thats wat i thought but what zpi recommends is straight bolts and nothing else