Hey All -
My buddy just sold me his old custom borla exhausts for $100. Figured why not, i'm all stock right now so I'll see how I like these.

Before I mount them, how can I spruce these up a bit? Obviously I can polish the tips with chrome polish, but as for the rest of the muffler, I'm thinking going all black with high temp paint. It's not a pretty exhaust and not a stainless steel "polishable" muffler so figure going all black is fine.

Also the welds are good but looks a bit shoddy. Should I take an angle grinder to them to smooth them out before painting? Worth it?

Any other thoughts?

 

to be honest... i would just stick to stock. Save your $$$ for something better. i found my exhaust in the private marketplace section. Just my opinion (.02)

 

It's a little late for that^
"Sold" past tense. Money was spent already lol.

 

Lol yup already in my hands.

They were only $100. A little weekend project to fix them up a bit and they should look decent. If not, no big loss and I go back to stock.

 

No one will see the exhaust welds on the top of them, so don't worry about it. Give it a go!

 

Willdogs, here's a simple DIY for blacking-out the exhaust cans, should make them look 10x better. Look forward to installed pics
https://g35driver.com/forums/v36-diy...-blackout.html

 

Thanks Sir! I should have some updates in a couple weeks. I'm travelling for business for a while and should have a free weekend to work on them soon.

I plan to
- Grind the welds to smooth them out
- Fill in any tiny voids in the welds to ensure a solid seal
- wire brush and smooth out all the piping with high grit sand paper
- paint everything black including the cans back to the clamps black high temp paint
- Shiny up the chrome tips with Cleaner/polisher

In the end I expect them to look pretty good. I will put them on and see how they sound, if too loud for my tastes I can just re-sell them to someone on here.

 

Rough idea of what I hope the final outcome to look like

 

I think I'd run the paint all the way up until the tips go flat so maybe back another 1.5" or so.

 

Also before you do the work why don't you put it on there and see if you could be content with the new noise.

 

Something like this?



I can dig it

 

Well because I want to make them look nice either way. If I keep them awesome, if I sell them on, I can make a bit of profit since I cleaned them up and made them more presentable.

I figure if I don't like the sound I could at least sell on the pair for a good $150-$175 after I put some work into them. The paint and other items I am buying to spruce these guys up is costing me about ~$45 anyway so I wouldn't be making a huge profit. Honestly I enjoy little projects like this so why not

 

Flat black or semi flat and make them disappear under the car. It will look great! Just clean them up, scuff'em up with sand paper and a $7 spray can. No $45 needed

 

Update:

So I had some time today to get them ready for paint. I grabbed a beer and took a wire wheel to them connected to my drill. Amazingly all the rust and weathering came off fairly easily

After = Left
Before = Right



I also removed both OEM clamps after cleaning them up. The previous owners shop cut them in front of the clamps. This will be a nice Bolt on with no welding needed for me



After I cleaned both up, the next step was to use some exhaust sealant on a some of the welds. The welding done by the previous ouwners shop is OK, but there were a few pin sized holes I wanted to seal up so they would be air tight. It was a bit messy but it did the job.
The sealer goes on a bit wet and heat is what cures it. It stated to heat them up while driving, which was hard since they are not mounted, so I improvised and pulled out my trusty heat gun. 700 degrees should do it, and it did! The sealant was as hard as steel after a few minutes of heat on each weld





Here they are as they stand now, not bad I think. Ready for paint when I have time, hopefully sometime this weekend.





I'll clean the one on the left up a bit more before painting

 

Nice work op!