It's times like this when I miss SoCal.  I had a fully mandrel bent 3" exhaust with a Flowmaster 40 series muffler and CarSounds cat installed on my K1500 Blazer about 6 years ago for less than 2/3 of what the local exhaust shop wants to do a 2" crimp bent exhaust with a cherry bomb and their generic cat installed on my '96 2 door Tracker.  So I'm under the Tracker trying to fight 10 year old exhaust components and praying that I don't break anything important while doing so.  I've decided to call it quits for the night while I've still got a functioning, if old and leaky, exhaust under it.

I've got a Calmini 2" exhaust kit that I'm installing with a Cherry Bomb muffler and a Magnaflow/CarSound direct replacement cat.  Two new oxygen sensors will be going on at the same time.

-Anybody know what size wrench/socket I need for the O2 sensors?
-Where's the plug for the second O2 sensor?  I see the first sensor's plug is up by the firewall but the second sensor's pigtail just goes up into the boot in the floor and from there?
-I'll likely be getting Bosche brand O2 sensors...do these plug into these plugs I'm referring to or do I need to cut and splice their wires into the factory wires?
-Calmini and Magnaflow/CarSound don't seem to agree on how the flange after the cat and the flange in front of the muffler should meet.  Calmini's flange in front of the muffler is flat and they supply a flat paper style gasket.  Magnaflow/CarSound have a similar flange but the pipe seems to stick out a further 1/2" as if the muffler side's pipe would fit over it or a very thick gasket would go in between the two peices.  Should I just whiz this "extra pipe" off or am I missing something?

Gotta love the rust belt.

on the 02 stuff try trail tough for the oem parts, I don't like to splice o2's because they use miliamps or very low wattage (spell check)and you would have to solder them and then use shrink tubing on the splice's, and bosch still could make a bad o2 sensor and you might pay double for it, as for the pipes do you have a picture of them ?

i have had lots of good luck with NTK o2 sensors and bosch. you have the option of buying the sensors with or w/o the oem plug on the end of it. i always go with the plug - saves time. as far as your exhaust is concerned i'm not to familiar with the calmini system but from what i've seen it is designed to bolt up to the stock flange off of the cat. if the two are different maybe you can cut off the flange and sleeve it or something - maybe a pic of the two ends? oh yeah - the o2 sensors should be a 13/16 th or 22 mill if i remember.

derek

So does anyone remember where the end plug is for the 2nd O2 sensor? Is it up inside, under the carpet somewhere?



derekj, damn, good idea...I've got like a foot of 2.25" tubing sitting around here from the Ranger...I owe you a cookie...   I might even just whiz the flange off the end of the cat and put the cherry bomb on right there...I bet I can make the difference up...

Ya the rear 02 conn is under the driver seat carpet.

      Kevin

So how do I get to it?  Take the seat out and pull the carpet back?

What about the plug in the floor, how do I get through that, it seems pretty intent on holding onto the wires.  I don't want to ruin it and have water getting in there.

I have the exhaust on now.  Tooks some work to make it all fit and I'm not quite happy but it's still a hell of a lot better than paying the local shop $500 to do it.

That said...anyone know the name of the peice of pipe (less than a foot long) between the exhaust manifold and the cat?  It's curved, just plain pipe with a flange on both ends.  I thought I could reuse mine because it looked whole but as soon as I started taking the bolts off the flange at the cat end just started crumbling.   Now the seal in front of the cat leaks BAD.   Need to pick up a new one of these things.

I found out that Sean of Aftermarket4x4 on Zuwharrie.com sells the downpipes for about $25 used and replacement downpipes are VERY hard to find.  Might literally be a dealer only part.  I was bitching at work and a coworker told me about a slip on replacement flange that NAPA sells that I could try.  Picked it up for $22, bolted it on, and it's working great so far.  It's basically a flange cut in two with bolts that run through it to hold it together and squeeze it onto the pipe.  I just seated it up against the old flange (well, what's left of it) and tightened it down.  So far, so good.   I figure since the downpipe is actually in pretty good condition and seems "happy" where it is on the manifold with no leaks or anything I'd do this and not dink with replacing the whole thing.

Man, the exhaust sounds nice.  Has a sort of deep, burbly tone.  Also seems to rev better and no more poof from under the truck on first startup...just out the tailpipe.  I still have to replace the front O2 sensor so I'm thinking things can only get better.

im just wondering but how does a sidekick sound with a cherry bomb is it like a rice burner or is it deep? and hows that calmini work and sound?

It's an 18" cherry bomb.  It's louder and deep but not "hey look at me I have a Z71 with a Flowmaster" loud and deep.  If that makes any sense.  It's definately not rice rockety, our 4-cyls don't rev high enough and my pipe isn't wide enough to sound like most of the wanna-be-boy-racers around here.

The Calmini system is good in my opinion.  If you can't find a local shop that knows what they are doing and mandrel bends then I'd consider it a good option, especially for the price.  Instructions could be better but I hear that about everything they sell.  The fit is pretty good but keep in mind they make it for a stock Tracker/Sidekick so I had to modify the mounts a bit to keep the tailpipe up some on mine.  I also had to deal with fitting a 5" longer muffler to it and battling an exhaust system that was dead.

Thats why i picked the Doug Thorley header, it goes all the way to the cat and eliminates that down pipe...plus they offer a ceramic coated model which i got, but can't really tell it is, what the differance to the naked eye?

If I had the extra cash I'd have gone for a header but I have too many projects right now to spend $300 on something I don't really need.   If wishes were horses...

I was amazed how fast the header lost is shine 

I also melted my 02 Sensor 

glad to hear that it worked out for ya.

derek