If you asked me whats broken the most on the S13 I'd reply with exhaust before you finished asking the question.
In my last entry I talked about my exhaust... This was an Apexi N1 exhaust that I just obliterated on my first drift day in the S13 but to be honest I would have been having all of these issues regardless.
I'm not going to detail each iteration my exhausts gone through because I'm not writing a book... but there are a few things I've done to finally get my exhaust to the point it works and not touch the tarmac whilst drifting, even over the nasty bump in Driftlands "Nikko" extension.
Everything I've listed here is what I would do if I had to start from scratch again. There are a few pictures currently missing as I'm writing this but I can clarify any questions etc over instagram @highland.sports if its not too clear what I mean in text.
So this is the result of the Apexi centre section falling off about 2-3 miles from home 3 hours into my drive back from Driftland thinking "It can't get that damaged".
I was wrong... With this I cut up an old Japspeed cabbage chucker, hammered flat and then welded this closed so I had a D shaped centre box. You could also replace this with straight pipe if you wanted. This gave me a centre box for silencing but also had given me about 25mm clearance in the centre section.
I've also cut and raised all of the exhaust hangars. I bought new rubbers, cut and rewelded the hangars so the exhaust was raised up. Mine were -20mm but I guess that depends on what rubbers you use. Theres also a cheat way to do this and use jubilee clips to hang your exhaust higher, but every time I've personally done this I'll do something to eject the exhaust off the hangars like ramp over a massive bump on some motorway in the middle of England after being warned of a VOSA checkpoint.
The rule of thumb for the front of the car I've always followed when doing these exhaust mods was that I wanted the exhaust tucking under the chassis rail at its highest point. So for that I ovalised a lot of the downpipe and middle section in a vice. It's now around 2" high but squashed outwards.
I also had a gearbox exhaust mount come off on one of my many exhaust falling off incidents so I replaced it with a bolt on off the shelf option.
Also when I did my SR swap I had a CA exhaust which meant I had to get rid of the triangle section so I hilariously pigeonshitted in a 3" flexi in place of the downpipe to elbow join. It doesn't leak so yeah I ain't fussed about how it looks. I cut out about 20mm from what it would be with the triangle, this was probably too much and I was paranoid for the first year or so that I was going to set the underseal on fire... I melted the carpet once but that was from the day I drove with a 3" tear on this flexi from ripping the exhaust off going up Freddies bank. (I'm on my 2nd flexi because, you guessed it, this crash ripped off my exhaust.)
So the other improvement that I did was sort of by accident... This was to swap the downpipe to mid-section join from the 2 bolt to a V band which I did for ease of removal but this ended up helping with my dragging issues. Basically I can fit up the exhaust loosely, put a jack on the exhaust in front of the diff, jack it to where I want the front part of the centre section to sit then do up the V band. I've got a second V band to do this for my backbox but I've always just had my centre section and backbox connected with very few issues at this part.
Also since I've raised my exhaust you'll its brought the heat nearer to the NS Diff CV joint. I burst these for years and decided to just live with it as i could do a good few drift days before needing to swap the join where there was no grease. I even tried the silicone boots to help but it would still see them off pretty quick.
Since then I've made up this bracket to help keep some of the heat away from the joints. This is just two M8 nuts welded to the subframe and then I can bolt this plate up to it. I've done a bit of fettling to it since this photo such as introducing a curve for the driveshaft bolts to clear, painting it and adding heat reflective tape.
For my exhaust manifold I'm currently running a Japspeed type T that has been braced up to help stop it from cracking. Its held up pretty well so far! I think the issue with a lot of these manifolds is from sub-par support since the entire exhaust and turbo system is hanging off them. Before this was braced, from factory there was just a 2mm piece of steel bolted to the outlet.
Worth mentioning at this point too my turbo gaskets are OEM Nissan, brand new and then I've used metal locking nuts. Not had any issues with this setup, and that includes them being fitted both times I've ripped the exhaust off.
Think thats pretty much it for the topic of exhaust mods. Since all of these steps were implemented I can drive without hitting my exhaust and it's not fallen off, other than the time it was pulled from the NS to the OS.
