Have I said how much I hate hacks? Fucking. Hate. Hacks.
I've spent the last 2 days fighting a poorly made custom exhaust to get it to fit the way it should have initially. I now know why I kept blowing out manifold gaskets on the last car, instead of fitting the system to the converters, the guy must've used a prybar to spread the converter pipes to fit the exhaust he just bent up, there was a 2" difference in width between the converters and the pipes.
It must've been stressing the manifolds. I remembered fighting to get everything to line up when i did exhaust manifod gaskets on the last car. A little well placed heat with the hot wrench and some light hammering relieved some of the bends enough to line that up. Then the mufflers weren't hung level, the tailpipes were hitting the frame over the axle, which was probably the occasional clunk I used to hear, and one side was about 3" longer than the other....WTF DUDE? So I had to cut those pipes, realign everything and weld it back up. Luckily, the one good thing, he used heavier walled pipe so i was able to cut and butt weld it so it still looks good. I managed to get welding slag in my ear, laying there listening to it sizzle in my ear canal is always fucking weird. So now there's a small piece of metal melted into my head somewhere. Anyway, car sounds better now.
I need to start saving, there's a complete header to tailpipe stainless steel system I want, but it's almost $2700.
I think that's around half my cars book value..lol.