Hi gang. Newbie puke here. I wanted to share my experience with other Flowmaster users/possible buyers.
My car has been bone stock till last fall. A 96 mystic cobra. Yeah, I know I'm not in the SVT forum. Judging by the numbers on the views/replies list, I figured this would get more exposure here and it's still related.
Last month I ordered a Flowmaster American Thunder cat-back kit. The passenger side went on fairly well. Not much trouble. I had to bend the front hanger a bit, but not bad. The left side was total junk, to put it mildly.
First of all, it was about 1" too short. To mate the front flange to the stock mid-pipe I had to bend back both front and rear hangers a lot. Even then, I had to pull the whole driver side cat-back assembly forward just to get it to touch the mid-pipe. So now the hangers are both a bit stressed as they are under more tension than they should be just to get the exhaust together.
That brings up another problem. The driver side tailpipe fits like crap. For a system that is mandrel bent it is sub-par. The tailpipe transition over the rear axle is a very poor bend. Even without the problem of having to pull the cat-back assembly forward, there were interferences. When adjusted to fit together, the tailpipe transition over the rea axle rubs and binds in two places. One is the frame and the other is the upper control arm. I couldn't rotate the pipe more than 1/8". One direction it hit the frame. The other direction it hit the control arm. All I could do was mark the rub points on the pipe, take the pipe out, crush it a bit in the vise and essentially hand fit it into position. Very poor quality, IMO.
In addition to that, the fit between the tailpipe and muffler was poorly designed. When inserting the tailpipe into the muffler there is not enough pipe inserted before the bend in the tailpipe interferes with the fit. I could only get approx. 1/4" of pipe insertion. Not enough for a good connection IMO. The tailpipes could have been 1" longer at the front end without any problem. Instead they were cut too short. A rookie mistake. Not one a company like Flowmaster should make.
This is not what I expected from a company with the reputation it has. Poor fit and poor quality make for a very flawed product.
Just curious how many other Flowmaster users are out there and if you have had the same quality/fitting problems.
My car has been bone stock till last fall. A 96 mystic cobra. Yeah, I know I'm not in the SVT forum. Judging by the numbers on the views/replies list, I figured this would get more exposure here and it's still related.
Last month I ordered a Flowmaster American Thunder cat-back kit. The passenger side went on fairly well. Not much trouble. I had to bend the front hanger a bit, but not bad. The left side was total junk, to put it mildly.
First of all, it was about 1" too short. To mate the front flange to the stock mid-pipe I had to bend back both front and rear hangers a lot. Even then, I had to pull the whole driver side cat-back assembly forward just to get it to touch the mid-pipe. So now the hangers are both a bit stressed as they are under more tension than they should be just to get the exhaust together.
That brings up another problem. The driver side tailpipe fits like crap. For a system that is mandrel bent it is sub-par. The tailpipe transition over the rear axle is a very poor bend. Even without the problem of having to pull the cat-back assembly forward, there were interferences. When adjusted to fit together, the tailpipe transition over the rea axle rubs and binds in two places. One is the frame and the other is the upper control arm. I couldn't rotate the pipe more than 1/8". One direction it hit the frame. The other direction it hit the control arm. All I could do was mark the rub points on the pipe, take the pipe out, crush it a bit in the vise and essentially hand fit it into position. Very poor quality, IMO.
In addition to that, the fit between the tailpipe and muffler was poorly designed. When inserting the tailpipe into the muffler there is not enough pipe inserted before the bend in the tailpipe interferes with the fit. I could only get approx. 1/4" of pipe insertion. Not enough for a good connection IMO. The tailpipes could have been 1" longer at the front end without any problem. Instead they were cut too short. A rookie mistake. Not one a company like Flowmaster should make.
This is not what I expected from a company with the reputation it has. Poor fit and poor quality make for a very flawed product.
Just curious how many other Flowmaster users are out there and if you have had the same quality/fitting problems.