Hi Everyone,

This is my first time posting after lurking for the past two months. I'm really grateful for all of the information on here and happy to be a part of the community! I appreciate any help you guys can offer and hopefully I can do the same as I become more skilled. A little background info about my ride: I've got an R53 from 2005 with 100k. It only had one owner and the interior looks new. I'm slowly learning about everything else. I say that because I'm new to all of this and don't have any automotive experience, but I'm good with my hands and wanted to pick up a new hobby. Some work has been done to the car by a mechanic we trust, particularly the hard brake lines that were rusted out in two spots. I wasn't going to make that my first job : )

The OEM exhaust has been leaking and is rusty and needed a swap so I've spent yesterday installing the Milltek exhaust and header that I purchased from ECS Tuning. Everything has gone pretty smoothly, and the one hiccup has been tool related. I have a 1/2" drive torque wrench that has too big a head to torque the header bolts. I just came back from Home Depot with a 1/4" drive torque wrench so I can finish the job. I wrapped the header and perhaps that added circumference is interfering in which case I can remove the metal ties, partially unwrap the header, torque them, and apply new ties. What particular brand have you guys used to torque the header bolts without any clearance issues?

I was wondering about the clamp for the link pipe and if it should sit flush with the link pipe's slotted edge opening. I'm including a pic for reference where you can see I have it a little behind the edge of the link pipe. I wasn't sure if having a little inside is better or worse for possible leaks. Also, is there a torque spec for this? I was thinking of torquing it to the flange spec, 45 ft-lbs. I'm realizing now that the 1/2" torque wrench is a little too bulky for the flanges too so I'm just going to try to get it nice and tight and then I can torque them properly when I receive a 3/8" torque wrench this week. I definitely don't want to play around like this with the header bolts though.




One of the holes for the header bolts had a little tiny amount of welding that didn't allow the bolt to sit flush against the header's surface, but it looks good now that I have it tightened so maybe it squashed it? It was very small, probably around the size of a grain of quinoa or maybe a tiny bit smaller. p.s. I'm not in love with quinoa. I just can't think of anything else haha. Photos as well for that.




The rear silencers don't have a metal oval ring type of support the way the OEM do and I thought maybe I was missing something in the order. Looking at everything now, I don't understand what purpose they served on the OEM since everything is
suspended from the rubber mounts. Point aside, the top parts of the rear silencers are touching up against the heat shield, and besides this concern, everything else looks to have proper fitment. The rear silencers won't sit any lower than up against the heat shields because of the rubber mounts. They're not pressing hard against it, but they are touching. I feel like I did something wrong but it seems like the only way. Maybe I can push the heat shields up a little bit, creating some concavity in them to allow the top of the rear silencers to not touch. Does it matter that they're touching?

Thanks again for any help and for the opportunity to be part of an awesome forum!

Cristian