Swapping exhaust manifolds

[Mattmahope]

Is it an engine out job?

[Bravo73]

No

[Mattmahope]

Thanks! Any idea roughly how long a decent garage would take to do the job?

[Bravo73]

I could only give you details about an Evora (3 hours, ish). 

@Hangar 111 could tell you about an Exige though. 

[Mark030358]

About 4 hours to change on an Exige.

cheers

[RedViper]

 

40 minutes ago, Mark030358 said:

About 4 hours to change on an Exige.

cheers

That’s less than I assumed it would be. I thought it would be more like 10 for some reason and therefore probably wouldn’t be cheaply reversible if I sold car.

That makes me want them even more 😀

[Mark030358]

I saw Komotec change mine two weeks ago, around 4 hrs.

[Mattmahope]

Thanks chaps

[RedViper]

3 minutes ago, Mark030358 said:

I saw Komotec change mine two weeks ago, around 4 hrs.

I think the big caveat to that is they do it day in day out and will know all the tricks etc. 

Your nearest dealer you would trust on your car may do them very rarely. 

[Mark030358]

@RedViper, @Mattmahope here is one of the tricks re the rear manifold

Yep his leg was less than 50kg...

 

 

[RedViper]

4 minutes ago, Mark030358 said:

@RedViper, @Mattmahope here is one of the tricks re the rear manifold

Yep his leg was less than 50kg...

 

 

Ha ha ha. If that was your local garage I would be whincing and have to stop watching. 

It does make me think If I was to go for manifolds I’d be tempted to travel to somewhere who does it regularly. 

I presume the Nurburgring was still shut for winter while you were there. 

[Mark030358]

@RedViper Yep, still closed. KT is well, well worth a visit. I highly recommend it.

[RedViper]

28 minutes ago, Mark030358 said:

@RedViper Yep, still closed. KT is well, well worth a visit. I highly recommend it.

I’ve actually been there myself. I was on a Euro trip and we stopped at ring on way home and I hadn’t realised I had completely worn my tyres out (down to metal) anyway to cut long story short Daniel had one of his lads open the garage up on Sunday morning (normally closed) and fit me two new tyres. Completely saved my bacon.

[Maxi_z]

I just changed the manifolds on my Exige cup 380 with komotec ones

For sure Komotec can probably do it in 4 hours with a couple of persons working on the car the right tooling and knowing perfectly all the steps but at home with some not too wel translated instructions it

took me probably more like 15 hours

The work itself is not that difficult but I lost a lot of time to remove all the plastic parts airbox etc and to understand where they wanted the extension cables to go etc

Also some hardware was not supplied like new bolts.

 

[W31SSN]

Are the Komotec headers much louder than the stock ones? Have you gone for the Y pipe and cats too?

[Mark030358]

1 hour ago, W31SSN said:

Are the Komotec headers much louder than the stock ones? Have you gone for the Y pipe and cats too?

For sure the 2bular kit makes the sound even better.. aka louder 😈

cheers

[Maxi_z]

7 hours ago, W31SSN said:

Are the Komotec headers much louder than the stock ones? Have you gone for the Y pipe and cats too?

They are a little louder and more metallic for sure but I really like that together with the oem 380 muffler noise and still have the possibility to close the valves

Before with the valves closed it was almost an electric car now it s just quiet

I also got the Y pipe and sport cat

The oem 380 rear muffler is really heavy but except the expensive oem titanium version or some very light but noisy mufflers as ssc or others you find on internet most of the others are not much lighter

If It wasn t for the really nice noise of the oem one on the 380 I would have considered the komotec valved one with carbon tips or a 2bular or even the Lotus sports one so if for a 350 you might want one of those

 

 

[MrD]

Bringing this up to life, can someone with more technical knowledge than me please explain why it would take so long to change the manifolds? I would think - incorrectly so it seems - that with a proper ramp, tools, knowledge and people it wouldn't be a long task. Car up, drop undertray/diffuser and assuming there is access underneath, remove. 

Clearly I'm missing something here so I would appreciate if someone could educate me:)

[Barrykearley]

There’s no guarantee you’ll actually get the nuts off without destroying them. All sounds easy doesn’t it simply unbolt the old and whack on the new. If you’ve ever actually done such a thing within a very short time you normally will have expanded your profanity vocabulary almost infinitely along with removed large swathes of skin from your hands.

[Tex]

It’s probably 2 hours in all to just remove back box and cat especially if the lambda sensors prove tricky.

The manifolds are a different ball game and you can add at least 1 1/2 hours on top.

However if you can stand full height underneath, have all the tools and a mate to help and everything comes off simply ( which it never does ) it’s still over 2 hours imo.

[Kristof Thys]

When I replaced mine, it took me all in all 7 hours.  Access from underneath is not sufficient so you need to remove the cover that sits behind the boot carpet, remove the upper engine trim etc, remove undertray, remove diffuser, remove back box, remove Y-pipe, remove both manifolds, add extensions on the O2 leads, replace all other stuff, add all new gaskets, have bolts stuck etc.

I would say it's 4 hours MINIMUM.

[MrD]

Thanks guys - it does sound that it is quite an involving job.

I was only going with what my experience is on removing the back box - with the right tools (ramps, electric rachet for the million diffuser bolts etc) it takes me about 40 minutes but I understand that manifold removal is a completely different task altogether. Mind you it took me 2 hours the first time I did it but I now know my way around which helps.