Well I was going to attempt a DIY on my catback swap. After crawling up under and seeing how badly corroded the nuts and bolts are, I've decided to have a shop do the work.

Wanted to get an idea of what a REASONABLE labor cost is before I start calling around. Just want to know ahead of time if someone's trying to jerk me around.

So what is a ball park cost? I have ALL the parts. Even having all 4 O2 sensors replaced as well.

Anyone?

BTW: It's a 98 GS400. From the cats all the way back. None of that catback starting at the mid pipe BS.

 

I got my fujitsubo installed on my gs400 for $80.
Same as you I wanted to do it myself but after seeing the rusted bolts I figured I'd pay to save me the hassle.

 

I had the shop unbolt it, then rebolt it on lightly for $18. Then I installed it on myself. But I live like 2 min from a auto shop.

 

What kind of exhaust are u installing? Post vids

 

I had a shop unbolt it for me for $10 and did the rest myself.

 

Its that hard to unbolts some bolts? Shoot wd40 let it sit and just go at it with a breakerbar

 

The nuts on flanges are so corroded that there's nothing for a wrench or socket to grab a hold of. I pb blasted everything generously. I can spin the bolts on the cat flanges but no traction on the nuts. The bolts on the y pipe are rust infused to the flanges.

Don't have any welding tools or skills. I figure it'd be cheaper to pay a shop to do the swap. I'd have the shop just do the removal, but I don't I'd make it home without getting bust by the po po.

The car is 14 years old w/200k on the clock, & I think the cars first couple winters were in Michigan or somewhere salty.

Since Carson no longer sells their exhaust, I'm replacing the mid pipe with new oem pipe and the rest is a Topspeed setup. Not the kind with canister style mufflers with round tips, but with the style with oval tips and flatter mufflers.

Since the Topspeed shop is local to me I went and looked at both in their show room.
I'll post up pics when done. If cell phone vids are post worthy ill try that too.

My exhaust leak is so bad it's just plain embarrassing.

 

suggest letting shop unbolt it and installing it yourself

if you let them do everything it should be anywhere from 50-100

 

hah cmon guys. if it was that easy to unbolt then he would have done it himself.

he said the bolts are perdy much dead. so theres no point trying to unbolt since u need to drill em out if anything.

shop labor cost will prolly be around $100-200. depending on how much work they need to do when removing. Just call them and explain the situation to get a price quote.

 

Ok. So I've decided I'll give it one more shot. On my lunch hour I'm going to get a nut splitter and give that a shot. I can spin the bolts, but the nuts are rusted so much that there are no flat sides to get a wrench on, let alone the right size. I believe the rust has eaten away enough metal that 13mm wrench is too small, and a 14mm is too big.

I figure if I can split the nuts, the bolts should just come right out. I'd much rather spend $12 and do the work myself, than pay a shop $150-$250. I mean this is MOD money we're talking about here!!

 

So I took the advice mention, and asked the shop to cut the 4 cat bolts. And the result was an $8 tip to the tech that did the work. Shop refused to charge me for the work. He put in a couple of bolts with nuts to keep the pipe from dropping and scraping on the way home.

Did the whole install last night. Took longer than I wanted, but I had to make a couple of trips to Lowes and Autozone. I put new O2 sensors in the new factory mid pipe, and had to pull up the carpet and connect those, and I needed get the sensor socket to tighten them, which I got at Autozone.

I needed some bolts to attach the new y-pipe to the new factory midpipe. The Topspeed hardware didn't match the thread pitch on the oem pipe. The oem pipe had nuts tack welded. So another excursion to grab some M10x1.25s and I had everything I needed.

Following JeffTsai's advice about hand tightening everything first helped. The fitment of the mufflers was pretty wonky bumping and rubbing on the heat shields. Wasn't happy, and thought I might have to return the setup.

After further examination, flipping the y-pipe solved the problem for the most part. The mufflers on both sides are rubbing some on the tow hook plates. I'll just stop by the muffler shop and have them bend or grind them down in the spot I need and I should be golden. Also the driver side muffler hangs a bit lower than the passenger side. I reused the stock hangers. I can probably fix that with a hose clamp, or have the muffler shop heat and bend stuff a bit.

For the price, I think the shortcomings are acceptable. I'm sure the Tanabe would fit perfectly, but for twice the price.......



I'll try and post up a review with pics and vids this weekend in a new thread.