Ark exhaust broke

imwazn

I bought a used Ark Grip V2 at the end of June off of the forum. I haven't had anything bad to say about the exhaust up until yesterday. I love the sound of it, the performance and everything else. Onto the story though.

I was driving to a friend's house for a bbq taking a somewhat back road that's under construction. I've driven the road at least thirty times before both ways. The road is rather bumpy, but there have never been any problems scraping or anything over them (I'm lowered on Eibach's). Anyways, we were driving down the road, went over a bump which wasn't big at all. I heard a pretty loud clunk, which scared the **** out of me. I pulled over, got out and proceeded to see my mufflers sitting on the ground. Pictures were not on my mind at this point, so I don't have any of the exhaust still on the car. The hangers were no longer in, which explained why it was on the ground. Additionally, the tips were sticking out about four or five inches further than it should be. I saw a tear in the flex joints (at least that's what I think it's called, it's the metal weave parts). At this point I was pretty pissed.

A guy in a six series saw us standing on the side of the road and hopped out to help. We managed to pull the exhaust high enough to not drag it so I could drive it. I pulled it up to the closest mechanic and left it there for the night. This morning I brought my stock exhaust there. I didn't want to try to drive my car back home to do it myself, just in case something else had happened to my car. So they installed my stock exhaust again and everything was all fine. We went to go check out the exhaust and I guess I'll let the pictures do the talking.






At this point I don't really know what to do... I'm going to call the city to see if they will pay for the damages. Also, it's only the x-pipe so I might talk to Ark to see my options in buying just that. The mechanic said that it probably isn't repairable and I would agree, but I might also see if an exhaust shop would weld something up.

1st

******* bull bro that hurts. As far as the city claim good luck!! Your going to need it. Its tuff trying to get money out of the city at least here in California. Anyways 3 options from my point of you. Stock oem, Cut and fab to make that one work, Brand new.

Japanjay

Do they really use that crinkly **** instead of mandrel bent? WTF talk about turbulence huh?

PharmDZ

I was advised to not get the exhausts with flex joints, and this may be one reason why... that's a shame though. ARK exhaust looks/sounds great.

Staples

Looks like cheap Chinese flex pipes. Sorry to hear about the issue.

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'08 Infiniti G37s - Forced Induction Fed

imwazn

I'm gonna call the city today and see what happens of it. Hopefully they're helpful, but in all honesty, I don't think they'll end up doing much. I just really want them to fix that bump so this doesn't happen to anyone else around here...

Cmike2780

Flex joints aren't the problem. The Ark exhaust sits pretty low with the stock suspension and pretty much anyone I've met who had this set up has had it scrape.

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imwazn

I understand it scrapes, I'm not saying anything about that.

Should the flex joints blow out like that though? Maybe it's just that I've never seen this happen before, but I don't know...

1st

Does anybody know if the Fi or Stillen cbe systems come specifically designed for lowered cars like Greddy does with their exhausts? Is flex joints still a common practice for Ark?

Sales@AAMComp

Your exhaust will have a much greater chance of cracking due to excessive engine movement and vibration. Stock exhaust systems use donut gaskets which eats up movement/vibrations but to have neither is a HUGE risk

most flex section I see are just cross chained metal like the outer part of the picture above. I've never seen the wrinkle pipe like that underneath before

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Staples

No they shouldn't... They should dent at the most. Those aren't the proper flex pipes to use in this situation since that area sits low. I'm lowered and have hit the flex pipes multiple times, minus a few scratches and a small dent (didn't affect flow), it came out fine.

This is what should be used...



As you can see the whole area is cross layered inside, no "wrinkling" or "filler".

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'08 Infiniti G37s - Forced Induction Fed

coltrain

Waiting for Ark to chime in here...

1st

Well per the link ARK PERFORMANCE INC: DTS True Dual Exhaust Product Release. Their ad states full mandrel bend construction but the image shows flex joints. So yes I guess this is still a common practice.

TeamARK

Even our woven lines are made of stainless steel. All I can say is that our v1 does sit low. Therefore, we fixed that issue by coming out with the V2. Once you get reimbursed from the state, We can work something out with our new V2 or our Newly released DTS. Both of which has no clearance issues.

As for the flexpipes, we see nothing wrong with this. The Pipe itself were welded on tight and even withstood this damage. It did its job by not loading the stress to the engine and its mounts. If there were no flex pipes, imagine the damage done to the engine.

ZBro16

I have never heard of this happening before... has anyone else with an Ark exhaust encountered this?