Martin
Enthusiast
I finally got around to installing the 3" Random cats (ceramic substrate) along with the Corsa Track exhaust on my '09 ACR. Overall, I like the sound a LOT more than the stock setup. It's nowhere nearly as loud as I thought it would be, so I'm almost wishing I would have gone with the metal substrate cats (JonB told me they were louder). Overall, I'm very pleased with the fit and finish of the system, and it was easy to install.
Some things I noticed during the install:
1) The factory either doesn't know how to install O2 sensors, or they got a batch of them that had extremely messed up threads. The driver's side sensor wasn't too bad, but I almost gave up on the passenger side sensor and ordered a new one. When I finally got it out, the threads looked like someone cross-threaded it at one point and then forced it to fit... I did my best to clean up the threads, and it went into the Random cat **** OK.
2) That pesky inner nut on the sidesills is a giant pain in the butt. There was just no way to get to it through the louvers, so I ended up Dremeling a hole in the fender (as was recommended in a write up). I tried loosening up the inner fender to push it out of the way, but wasn't having much luck with that (seems like you need two people to keep the pressure on the inner fender while trying to get to the bolt).
3) The heat guard that's bonded to the side-sills wasn't bonded... When I took the side sills off, the heat guards fell right out. Not sure if that's a big deal or not, and I may try to bond it back in.
4) Corsa recommends tack-welding the exhaust to the cat - and I'm probably going to do that. The exhaust seems like it is going to want to move around - even with the bolts tightened, I get the impression that the exhaust wants to rotate downward, and that single band clamp doesn't seem stout enough to hold things in place.
Finally, if you're planning on doing this install, it was clear that the sooner you do it after buying the car, the easier it's going to be. I only have around 1000 miles on the car so far, and the stock exhaust had already gotten itself pretty solidly fused together. Nothing that a little coaxing with a small sledge hammer and wood block wouldn't fix, but was more of a pain than I thought it was going to be...
Some things I noticed during the install:
1) The factory either doesn't know how to install O2 sensors, or they got a batch of them that had extremely messed up threads. The driver's side sensor wasn't too bad, but I almost gave up on the passenger side sensor and ordered a new one. When I finally got it out, the threads looked like someone cross-threaded it at one point and then forced it to fit... I did my best to clean up the threads, and it went into the Random cat **** OK.
2) That pesky inner nut on the sidesills is a giant pain in the butt. There was just no way to get to it through the louvers, so I ended up Dremeling a hole in the fender (as was recommended in a write up). I tried loosening up the inner fender to push it out of the way, but wasn't having much luck with that (seems like you need two people to keep the pressure on the inner fender while trying to get to the bolt).
3) The heat guard that's bonded to the side-sills wasn't bonded... When I took the side sills off, the heat guards fell right out. Not sure if that's a big deal or not, and I may try to bond it back in.
4) Corsa recommends tack-welding the exhaust to the cat - and I'm probably going to do that. The exhaust seems like it is going to want to move around - even with the bolts tightened, I get the impression that the exhaust wants to rotate downward, and that single band clamp doesn't seem stout enough to hold things in place.
Finally, if you're planning on doing this install, it was clear that the sooner you do it after buying the car, the easier it's going to be. I only have around 1000 miles on the car so far, and the stock exhaust had already gotten itself pretty solidly fused together. Nothing that a little coaxing with a small sledge hammer and wood block wouldn't fix, but was more of a pain than I thought it was going to be...
