Finally did this, wish I did it sooner. Sounds more amazing in person. Straight true dual with factory PSE, not xpipe

You Tube

 

Can you provide some info on how you did this? Did you order the midpipe or fabricate something? Any welding involved? I'm also in Maryland and looking to get my '11 Turbo exhaust sorted.

 

fabricated, not perfect and maybe one of my sloppiest work but it holds nice and secure. My crooked cuts on the new pipes and no car lift, I found it more of a PITA than I expected. I've also fabricated from the excess cuts a coupling-type piece to help the clamp hold and secured tightly since it feels like the OEM pipes are slightly larger in diameter than your typical 2.5in OD pipe, unless you have a pipe expander which I didn't. No welding. This way, I can place the resonator back if I needed to with the clamps. I didn’t take many pictures unfortunately but I’ll post what I have

I ordered two 2.5” OD T304 stainless steel 30in long pipes from Amazon and two 2-1/2in exhaust band clamps from Autozone(unfortunately I do not have pictures of the autozone clamps installed). You would need to cut the pipes to the length you need. However, I had a difficult time cutting those T304 stainless steel pipes with a sawzall, I ended up using a angle grinder which took some efforts as well. It would turn red hot and gave it a moment to cool down along the way. As previously mentioned, my cuts weren't so perfect but the band clamps would compensate for that. I also used exhaust sealant and applied it at the clamps

2-1/2in Band Clamp

I initially had two band clamps similar to the existing clamps used before the resonator(towards the engine and shown on the pictures below) but they were too thick to fit after the resonator since the pipes are practically butted together. I didn’t cut near the resonator since the pipes are more flatten oval-shaped at that area, and made the cut where the pipe is round. If you cut too far out and further away from the resonator, the pipes are butted together at that point and you won’t be able to fit the band clamps in between. Not to mention you''ll come across that small welded brace that keeps the two pipes together(see 3rd photo below). I suppose you could cut after that brace allowing some separation of the pipes. but you may need the pipes longer than 30inch. Also I was thinking it may risk some alignment issues if I cut that brace off.


towards the engine



this is after the resonator with the thicker band clamps, I offset my cuts to hopefully get more room for the clamps but it wasn’t fitting still…the clamps do not tighten completely and do not sit securely. As you can see, the pipes should be more in parallel but the thicker clamps is preventing it to align properly. Fortunately, I was able to use the thinner clamps from autozone(sadly no pictures) allowing a little more wiggle room to straighten up those pipes.




May have been better if i made the cut on one pipe slightly closer to oval section where it has the most separation of the two pipes... giving me more of an offset and room for the clamps. However, if I was to place the resonator back in the future, the clamp may not hold the flatten oval section properly so make your cuts at the round sections just enough for the clamps to hold.

Overall if I was to ever do something like that again, I would've cut it more of an offset which would allow the clamps to clear from each other completely rather than the slight overlap. I would probably still use the thinner Autozone clamps, but the thicker OEM-like clamps may have worked if the cuts were further apart.