Welding RMW exhaust (Subaru)

[coclimber]

I'm thinking about welding the parts of my RMW exhaust together and scraping the clamps holding all the parts together. Good or bad idea?
_________________
'83.5 Westfalia Camper - SOLD
'86 Westfalia Weekender
2001 Subaru Legacy 2.5L donor
Rocky Mountain Westy kit

[rubbachicken]

bad idea, talk to RMW and ask what they think
_________________
lucy our westy

lucy's BIG adventure

meet 'burni'

[coclimber]

[insyncro]

Not advised.

[uncommonvw]

My guess is they use the clamps to allow some room for expansion and contraction due to the heat cycles an exhaust system sees.

If you weld the pipes together it may cause cracking in the flanges near the cylinder heads?

Best bet is to call the people that made it as somebody already suggested.

[tschroeder0]

i can say that the clamps are a real pain, you must heat cycle them and tighten them like you want to break them and then repeat this several times. I was vigilant about this when I did my swap and would still find that they would be loose after some driving...now after some road use and much tightening they stay put, but it should not be this hard.

[tschroeder0]

summit racing and Jegs make some nicely made alternatives if I remember.

[msewalson]

I'm in the same boat as everyone else. Like Todd, I also have one of their exhaust systems and again agree it takes some heat cycles and retightening to get them to stay put. I also used an exhaust sealer from Permatrx that is also cat friendly.
_________________
87 Syncro w/EJ22

[insyncro]

What I have done with all wbx exhausts including the wbxhuast from Vanistan/RMW is loosely mount everything and hand tighten.
If I like where the system sits, I mark the flanges with a paint pen, start mounting the headers out and sealing with a high temp flange sealant at all joints and RED Loctite on the fasteners.
I torque past the Bentley numbers by 5 lbs.
RED Loctite on all exposed threads, paint mark for heat on removal.

Tight as a drum.

[rubbachicken]

their clamps are fine, if you follow the instructions, torque to 80 ft/lbs then re tighten once the engine has been run, i have only fitted one this far, i might be fitting another in the near ish future, they are fine, i fitted the clamps so that you are tightening on the head of the bolt rather than the nut, {i think this is how chris shows in his instructions} because i think they look neater when the exposed thread is out of eyesight, and it makes it easier, the bolts were too long for my deepest deep socket, when torquing them up.
_________________
lucy our westy

lucy's BIG adventure

meet 'burni'

[insyncro]

I used my own fasteners.

[tschroeder0]

Just an fyi, I am refering to the suby exhaust, the wbxer/ vanistan are smaller pipes I believe.
I was told when I bought the kit by someone who has installed many of these to pay special mind to the clamps because of issues. I can assure you I did and found them loose often after heat cycling and retourqing. On two I eventually cut a stainless shim to make up the gap, since then no more loosening.
Todd.

[coclimber]

[insyncro]

Thought you were talking wbx exhaust...sorry.
I seal up the conversion exhausts too.

[kryptkat]

I had mine installed over the weekend and I can tell you from first hand that the supporting bracket on the right (Passenger side) does not line up with the clamp. My mechanic and I tried bending, heating, mending; banging and nothing would line up right. At the end of the day, we took the welder and welded the cat to the muffle, the muffler to the tail pipe (which we have to chop off another 6 inches because the tail pipe sticks out way too much to be safe for off-roading). And for support so that the tail pipe doesn’t get scrape at every bump in the road, we welded the top of the tail pipe to the J-pipe. We tossed the left supporting bracket in the recycle bin. I was not an easy installation but no more rusty exhaust and the stainless look bad azz!!! Oh and the extra power is pretty sweet too. Driving home from the shop, at certain RPM, pedal to the metal will give you that sinking feeling in the driver seat. It’s going to be a fun summer and I hope the exhaust system is not going to crack from the welding.

[a914622]

If your going to weld on the headers I would use a ball and cup style connection . No issues with heat expansion . Or the hi pressure steam line style clamps? As mentioned above I would not weld solid because of possibility of cracking the 304 ss

Good luck
_________________
87 gl powerd buy 2.5subaru
75 914 getting 2.2t subaru scratch that SVX subaru