I am growing sick and tired of all the problems I seem to encounter with my ST right now. I am having the Milltek flexipipe and cat back exhaust fitted. I was told the manifold bolt was cross threaded and when they took the bolt off it broke. It seems they are finding it impossible to get a bolt to go in place as Frauds are saying they'll only supply it with a new manifold.

Can someone please help me out or am I just gonna have to wait another 3 days before I see my car again?

I'm FUMING mad with Sanspeed right now because every day I'm told it'll be ready "later today" or "tomorrow morning" and they promise to phone me but never ever do... This is the last time I ever go anywhere near them. They are NOT recommended.

**updated**

In a quick 5 minutes phone calls & 2 car journeys I ordered the ****ing bolts myself from CD Bramall Ford dealership in Bexley (about 2 mins down the road from me!). I really dont understand this company doing the work for me because when I phoned them and told them I'd ordered the bolts, they acted amazed and suprised. Good grief...

I'm so hoping my car will be done tomorrow because I've got to give someone a lift on Saturday!

Know the feeling . . . Sorry to hear.

Although, in other news, I had a totally trouble free day getting my flexipipe changed today (don't worry - I've had my share of workshop rants before...)

I took the car to Powerflow Salt River (Cape Town). The guys were great - they understood what I wanted and recommended de-catting too. I told them that that could wait until I understood how the engine management could be handled.

They said that the stock Ford mandrel bent tubing going to the cat was better than anything they could make and left that section intact. Towards the engine, they said there was a kink in the tubing, and then the restrictive flexipipe. They replaced the kinked section with straight piping and fitted the 57mm flexipipe in place of the stock 42mm. According to their technician, the kink may be to alter the torque characteristics of the engine, and not necessarily a restrictive measure. I guess the only real way to do this properly is to dyno any changes (I didn't). The entire job cost R550 (about 47 pounds, I think).

They weren't impressed with the stock manifold - thought it looked very cramped. Unfortunately, there probably won't ever be enough of the vehicles on S.A. roads to warrant local production of a manifold

I guess the next step will be to de-cat and free-flow, once R5_FVN on RSSTOC has figured out how to trick engine management successfully

*lol* Yes he's having a bit of a 'mare with that isnt he? I'm sure he'll get there!

I'm having the Milltek cat back system and flexipipe fitted and (if they've remembered to do it) power runs before and after so I can keep an eye on what I've done (Pipercross panel filter vs K&N 57i induction kit). I wont decat my car because it'll become illegal and wont pass the MOT test (yearly road worthy test done once a car is 3 years old). If and when I get the money I might get the whole lot done, like DanST has, but thats waayyyyyy expensive. I still havent made my mind up about lowering it tho

Pray for me, my sanity and that weird little man at the dealership that the bolts are the correct ones!!

There is. Milltek do them.

IMO, that's the best way to go, get the performance increase and also stay legal (emissions wise). BTW, good luck with your bolts Pink.

This is it when I have the money, the full system will go on but for now its cat back & flexipipe. With that alone, I'm looking at a hopeful 11bhp extra. I'll be perfectly happy with the kind of gains a friend of mine Laura got with her ST (which is now running at around 180bhp!!)

http://www.millteksport.com/media/custom/281.jpg

*lol* cheers! I think I need all the luck There will hopefully be a biiiig post tomorrow with graphs of my power runs and pics of my new exhaust. I'm going down to Brighton on Saturday so my poor friend Ben will have to suffer me blasting down there (within the lega speed limits of course people!)

Seen Laura's car on "the other site" looks absolutely mint.
Look forward to the graphs and pics, if not I think you should send round the heavies to sort out Sanspeed, or Ford if the bolts don't turn up

That's it ... I'm going out to get some Hell's Angels to beat the whatnot out of that freaky guy at Ford, Sanspeed and anyone else in my way... Wrong ****ing bolts. It "should" be done today.. Yeh right..

Hi Ryan

Why did you change the flexipipe? cheers