S15 Silvia Mods: May 2014

Friday, 16 May 2014

How to Remove a Nissan S15 Silvia Exhaust from Turbo Back - Part 3

Part 3 - Removal of the Dump Pipe

The dump pipe connects to the turbo by 3 bolts and 2 nuts. It is rather "fiddly" to remove, but not particularly difficult. You need to remove a few components to access it.

The above image you will only need to worry about the blow-by hose (1), heat shield (11) and dump pipe (13). We will refer to this later.

First, remove the heat shield from the manifold along with the O2 sensor. I'd suggest removing the blow-by hose. The below picture doesn't show it but I completely removed the hose as it made it difficult to access the bolts and sensor (just use a pair of pliers to squeeze the clamp off the top and bottom).

The heat shield has four bolts on the top and one on the side near the ABS system. Be cautious, I broke off a bolt in removing the heat shield (I couldn't remove it despite my efforts with easy-outs).

You will need to use the 22mm O2 sensor socket for this step. Depending on the age of your O2 sensor, you may wish to replace for approx $100.

Begin to loosen the bolts/nuts around the turbo/dump pipe. You may need to be inventive with the spanner and socket set you use. I used a ratcheting spanner and a combination of sockets and adaptors/joints.

The above picture is from underneath the car. There is another heat shield that needs to be removed along with the nuts/bolts that hold the dump pipe to the turbo.

After the dump pipe is removed, clean up the area, add a new gasket and fit it all back together.

Fit the new dump pipe to the turbo, put on one or two nuts (loosely) then while supporting the dump pipe (as not to put the full weight of it on the turbo) you will need to shift backwards and fix the bracket to the car. The easiest way I found was to attach the bracket first and then you only have one bolt to attach.

Then slowly tighten all the nuts and bolts, in an opposing fashion to give an even fixture onto the turbo and bracket.

Now it is just a simple process of adding the cat and muffler (opposite as you took them out) and tightening up some bolts, and you're done.

Thanks for reading, any questions please feel free to leave as a comment below.

How to Remove a Nissan S15 Silvia Exhaust from Turbo Back - Part 2

Part 2 - Removal from Dump Pipe Back

As I only had two jack stands I had to first jack up the passenger side to remove the muffler and resonator and then I jacked up the front to remove the cat and dump pipe. The reason for this was due to me not trusting the wheel chocks that I had so I wanted at least one of the back wheels on the ground (with handbrake applied and in gear - as it is a RWD).

Please see the below images to familiarise yourself with the layout of the exhaust.

The next image details the layout of the exhaust from dump pipe back.

Now that the car is jacked up, start by removing the muffler.

Once under the car there are two nuts which attach the resonator pipe to the muffler - remove them. There is also another bolt which attaches the hanger to the underside of the car - remove this too.

You will need plenty of WD-40 and/or Loctite Freeze and Release to assist this.

Once the bolts are removed you will need to remove the rubber hangers. The above image shows the location of all three.

Applying some WD-40 to the hanger will help slide it off.

Now moving down the resonator pipe you will come to the next flange. This connects the catalytic converter to the resonator.

As you can see this was extremely rusted and took a bit of effort to remove. Once these two nuts are removed there is another hanger that needs to be taken off towards the rear of the car. After the hanger has been removed you will need to support the pipe as you lower it to the ground.

The most difficult part to remove was the nuts which attach to the dump pipe.

There are 3 nuts to remove which attach to the dump pipe. You will need a lot of Freeze and Release to remove these. You may also require a universal joint for your socket set, or stubby/short spanners or ratcheting spanner. I used a combination of these to remove it.

Before you remove it completely, you must leave the bolts attached, but loose.

Next step is to remove the support bracket. This attaches via two bolts off towards the drivers side and attaches to the cat as pictured. Once you have removed these bolts you then need to support the pipe while you remove the 3 bolts from the dump pipe. Careful, it can be awkward to lower gently with only one hand.

You have now removed the exhaust system from dump pipe back. Next we will remove the dump pipe in Part 3.