I have been chasing a weird lean condition while trying to tune my truck. It all started after I put the new Headers and exhaust on.. Anyways I finally found it. The factory welds on the Magnaflow Y-pipe are busted/leaking.... The black areas on the pictures below is where it was leaking... The only real reason I found it was I was looking at it this morning when I was warming it up and I noticed water dripping out of the welds...










Kinda sucks when you buy a piece from a good brand it is sucks!!! Anyways while I had the exhaust off, I decided to smooth down the welds and paint it. I got tired of grinding after doing the Y-pipe so I just left the rest... The kinda of crappy thing is that with paint on the pieces it makes the welds stand out more ....

 

What did u paint it with? Is it a high heat paint?

 

Yep, Dupli-color High Temp supposedly up 1200*, I did not know it was that shiney...

 

i did my headers with that stuff and started cracking and flaking in the first day

 

That's a bummer to have a leak like that. The exhaust looks good now. I like to see the welds anyway, looks hand built instead of bent overseas.


Did you strip the factory paint before painting with the Duplicolor?

 

Keeping paint on headers is completely different than exhaust piping.... I like to see welds too, if they look like dimes layed on top of each other. Unfortunately my welds almost look like that but I am a bit out of practice... On my mustange years ago when I did the exhaust on it, I smoothed down every weld so the entire exhaust looked like one seamless pipe, even the mufflers, however that took days to do... The paint really does not matter it will be dirty in a few days anyways, mainly just personal satisfaction..

 

Good catch man, leaks like that can be tough to find, especially when you don't know that an exhaust leak is what you're trying to track down. I've got a Magnaflow x-pipe in the "to be installed" section of our storage space...if I ever get around to re-doing my exhaust, I'll be sure to pay extra attention to the welds.

As you mentioned, it sucks when a company with a good rep exhibits sub-par quality, especially when you're looking for a problem with the truck and trusting that your name brand part isn't the cause

 

yea i sandblasted them them sprayed the coating on and let dry for like 2 or 3 days while i was working on getting the motor in when i swapped to the ls1. i actually used a eastwood header coating 1200*. my g/f's dads race car he used the same can of stuff but painted on with a brush and hasnt had any problems so i dunno what happened