Is there anyway to get at these bolts from underneath or is it necessary to go in from the hood?

Yes you have to go under the hood. But I have heard of people going threw the fender (at least on the drivers side) to have there torched off due to the bolt being stripped.

Hmm...I have a Dremmel...I wonder if I could just cut the damn thing off lol.

I wouldn't... I would keep soaking them all in pb blaster. The bolt is at an angle that is perfect to reach with 30" of extensions just put your socket set-up on the bolt and make sure it's at that same angle. I actually removed the strut tower brace, the post maf tubes and that really gives you a lot more room to see the bolt easily.

^ correct

Sounds like a game plan to me!

Not to raise a dead thread but I am going to tackle this job sometime this morning. Any last words of advice?? I have all the necessary tools to do the job but was just wondering if there were any more tips or tricks I could apply.

PB blast the bolts for a bit if you can, use a 6 point socket set and try to not strip the bolts. Remove the CAI for better access and good luck! Yer gonna need it!!! :happydance::driving::eekdance::nutswinger::owned:

PB Blast the car now for tomorrow. Remove intakes. No reason at all you should need a swivel. Makes it that much worse. It's a straight shot. Six point socket (hopefully impact socket) and a two foot breaker bar helps a lot.

Got the bastards! Used Liquid Wrench instead of PB and the came off without a problem. Barely a creak out of the drivers side and the passenger side came off even easier. Slow and steady pressure was key here! :ughdance:

This was a new car with 1200 miles so I am sure that helped as people have said.

Could not figure out a way to fit my impact socket on the drivers side. Ended up using 1/2 universal and socket. Thanks for the advice guys. Couldn't have done this job without this forum!!

been a while since a clean success story was posted lol.

^This guy mentions using new bolts. I bought my HFCs used and the guy didn't give me any bolts. Is it necessary to use new ones and, if so, where can I buy them from?

Same situation I had, if you know the sizes you can just goto home depot and buy them. I was told by the company that made my hfcs some mixed (and wrong) info...basically theres one stud attached to the header side, so you'll at least need two new bolts n nuts per side.

OEM hardware could work but thats provided nothing breaks during removal

Never worked on an exhaust before or really any car before, and I had a clean run :) thanks to all the past failures lol and knowledge here.


what i did:

jack up car. spray bolts with PB Blaster. drive car around to heat up exhaust again. jack up car. spray bolt before using a 6 point deep impact socket and breaker bar. tighten bolt first to get it moving. go the other way and losen/remove bolt.

for the two bolts that had to be removed through the engine bay I used a breaker bar and only impact extensions, most of them were swivel extensions. didn't have to remove the Z1 post MAF tubes. for these bolts i placed the impact socket on the bolt first and from under the car and then had someone feed me the extensions so i knew it was flush and wouldn't strip and pressed into the breaker bar with one hand so it stayed flush as i was turning the breaker bar.

used so much force on the top two bolts that i fell once they loosened and wasn't sure what happened at first.

success, no broken bolts and a clean install thanks to the forum members here.