Stillen Gen3 Intake, Berk Hi-flow cat, and Stillen cat-back exhaust

axio

I'm hearing mixed things. Josh said on this thread that Stillen has made changes to the jig so that this should be corrected. However my mechanic was talking to Chuck from Stillen's R&D department and he said he had no idea of any corrections, nor was he aware of anything wrong with our exhaust fitment in the first place and was aparantly upset at Josh posting that there was a correction.

Josh, can you please elaborate on this?

Josh@STILLEN

Chuck is the Customer Service Manager, and is a point of contact for problems in installation and customer questions, for which it's his job to research the problem, talk to our technical people, and work on solving the issue. He is not in R&D.

He was not immediately aware of some people having issues with the crossmember because it's largely not been an issue, except for a couple of guys on the boards as you've seen, most being resolved already.

There isn't a significant difference to the exhaust, it's just a little different to aid in the installation. I know everyone likes their shops and their installers and I'm sure that all of them are good guys, but in most of the instances it's pretty clear that the instructions were not followed, and the center section was not raised before the system was tightened down, particularly at the slip joints, which once tightened the first time like to remain together, and unless they are fully separated, tend not to allow for further adjustment. This is why we've made the minor change, to reduce the chance of the crossmember touching.

Axio, I would be happy to see if there is something we can do for you for the issues you've experienced, which is absolutely not something we expect. Please feel free to contact me.

Josh

axio

Hey Josh, thanks for the reply. As for the installation, I basically took it to the mechanic. He spent a long time fiddling with the exhaust, raising the middle section and then tightening all the bolts, and it didn't clear. Then he loosened the up again and did one section at a time with the jack pushing up the middle section and me pushing up the rest of the pipes as well. After a few times of us doing this, we were able to get the exhaust to clear by a few mm. We then unbolted the crossmember and added washers in there to act as spacers. Overnight though, the exhaust sagged and hit the crossmember again. I went ahead and added yet a third washer, and then also used hose clamps on the hanger to help prevent more sagging.

Now, the exhaust clears the crossmember by 1/4". Taht's with three washers acting as spacers to pull the crossmember down. And using hose clamps...

And what's worse now is i'm having exhaust leaks at the slip joints. I have no idea why the hell this happening. Is anyone else having exhaust leaks at the slip joints? Not only can I hear the leak, i can hear a rasp at around 2000 rpm now, which i'm assuming is a result from the leak. At one of the rear slip joints, there's even water that straight up drips from teh slip joint. I've been under the car, the slip joints look tight, I can't see any visible gaps... wth is going on?

If nobody else is having these issues, maybe I just have a random bad Stillen product. If that's the case, Josh, is it possible to get an exchange on this unit with one of your newer ones? I'm not trying to make any money off you guys, I'm not trying to get free parts, etc. All I'm trying to do is make this exhaust work properly... I'm just getting really frustrated here.