Rear Exhaust Flanges - X8R

Justino

Member
Thought I'd post up my experience with these, and some adjustments I made - may help others struggling to clamp up the rear boxes tightly. - I have only had to do one side at this stage.

I guess most on here will have these given the mild steel OE flanges will have turned to dust by now. I had these fitted a couple of years ago.

The rear tailpipe alignment/position within the rear bumper aperture is adjusted here, so you need a solid fitting. I used a trolley jack under the exhaust to push it so it was touching the bumper and tightened up. When the jack is removed the exhaust sags giving about a 10-15mm gap.

I hit a snag though on the drivers rear box, I couldn't tighten the bolts enough to lock it onto the middle section - the bolts bottomed out. The result was the exhaust sagged on that side, and probably would have leaked, although I never tested it.

I was starting to worry that maybe I had damaged the flared ends of the exhaust where they join with the donut/gasket ring.

With nothing to lose I decided to machine down the clamps, so that they would be clamping on a smaller diameter area of the chamfer, hence tighter. I am pleased to say it worked a treat, and everything is rock solid and positioned nicely in the rear bumper.

I reduced the height by 1mm by sanding down all 4 of the pieces of the clamp - before and after

2024-08-13_19-49-32_697.jpeg

A bit of a bodge, but I carefully sanded using an angle grinder and coarse sand paper disc, holding the clamp piece flat onto the disc, measuring with a micrometer as I went to check the reduction was even across the clamp. Ideally a bench sander/grinder would have made the job easier.

2024-08-13_19-47-32_746.jpeg

2024-08-14_13-31-56_609.jpeg

Final check on alignment will be done once the wheels are back on, and off axle stands.

2024-08-14_14-15-00_594.jpeg
 
I have similar clamps and I’ve swapped exhaust a few times, I tend to rotate mine around 45 degrees from the position in your picture and that allows even oem gap but that is with the inner ring installed too
 
InterlagosMC said:
I have similar clamps and I’ve swapped exhaust a few times, I tend to rotate mine around 45 degrees from the position in your picture and that allows even oem gap but that is with the inner ring installed too

I may try that whilst I still have the car in the air. I have the inner ring installed also.
 
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