The firewall forward kit ships with a new tail pipe extension that needs to be fit to the muffler that ships with the engine. In order to install the new 90 degree extension you must first cut off the existing tail pipe which feels absolutely crazy to do on a brand new engine. So, lets get after it!
The instructions are pretty basic for such an important and potentially expensive mistake.
Pipe marked for cutting with large 4" cutting wheel
This cut goes all the way through removing the straight pipe. I cut just above the welded line and skipped the step of grinding down the factory welds
First cut finished and partially de-burred using eye protection, cut resistant gloves and a face mask, this step produces a lot of dust and sparks from the cutting wheel.
The next cut mark is 32.4mm measured from the base of the pipe. You can only cut half way through this next cut otherwise you will cut through the support shroud which would be bad.
I also used the 4" cutting wheel to cut off the lower section of the pipe so I had access to the inside the pipe for the next step.
There is still half the pipe still to be cut under the support shroud that needs to be removed using a small cut wheel on a Dremel.
Removing the lower part of the pipe cutting just under the should gave me the access shown here to cut out the last piece.
You end up with three parts at the end that look like this.
Next I de-burred all of the surfaces so that the new down pipe would fit on smoothly.
With the pipe testing fitting completed I used the supplied hardware to clamp the down pipe in place.
There are two different sized clamps that ship in the kit, the larger of the two is on the outside that locks the down pipe to the shroud.
The second, smaller clamp goes on the inside.
Tip #1
The bolts supplied with the kit are one time use, and will likely gall the threads if the hardware has been fully tightened, and you might need to source suitable replacements if you attempt to remove them later.
Tip #2
I had an issue with the inner clamp because the bolt shank grip length was too long and I could not get the clamp to fully tighten around the down-pipe and the muffler. I ended up getting a new bolt with a shorter shank that allowed me to fully tighten and secure the new pipe.
