Well, I had the infamous exhaust jingle that several people on the forum have had, so I decided to purchase the Bassani X-Pipe, which is rumored to resolve this issue.
First things first, it does resolve the issue!
Here's the problems I ran into while performing the install myself:
You will most likely need a second pair of hands, and not your wife or girlfriends, unless she is bigger and stronger than you are.
Measuring and cutting out the factory H is easy. Don't do a hack job with a sawzall, get a tailpipe cutter, and it will be a clean cut, easy to weld, if you choose to put it back to stock later.
You will need a rope or piece of material to pull the two straight pipes coming from the cats together, as they tend to want to spread after you cut out the H.
My new X didn't slip right on as advertised, I had to pound out the ends from the inside to get that extra 1/8th of an inch. After that it slid right on. (Make sure your clamps are on the X loosely before doing this) You will need one person to hold it up and one person to push it on.
Once I got it started was able to pound it on the rest of the way with a rubber mallet.
Here's the kicker, the factory H-Pipe has threaded flanges that accept the 10 mm exhaust bolts from the catback, the X-Pipe does not, and the wonderful people at Bassani do not bother to include locking 10mm course threaded nuts to secure the system with. Instead, you get 2 nifty silver stickers you get to look at while cussing the fine folks at Bassani out for not including the friggin' nuts with your
Quote:
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"Direct Bolt on replacement which requires no welding"
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So make a trip to the hardware store before you begin and pick up four 10mm locking course thread stainless nuts. New Stainless 10mm bolts would be a good idea too, just so you know they will work with your nuts. I think you need probably 40 or 50mm length to ensure enough length to lock the nuts on. I had to spend an hour looking around the auto hobby shop on base to find four nuts that would work, since I was not previously aware of this problem.
The hanger brackets on the X-Pipe are about an inch or so shorter than the brackets on the factory H pipe, (This is what causes the exhaust jingle) so you will have to have someone push up on the X-Pipe to be able to reach the hanger springs, so you can thread the bolts into the hangers. You can reuse the factory hardware for this.
Tighten these all the way down!
Next, attempt to align the flanges from the catback up with the flanges from the X-Pipe, this will not be easy on the 2002.
Bassani claims they do not make an X-Pipe for the 2002 C-5. They said that the '02 requires an additional bend in the pipes to align the catback properly.
YOU CAN STILL INSTALL IT , however, it will be an extremely tight fit, and your tips will probably sit about a half an inch lower than stock IF YOU ARE USING THE FACTORY CAT BACK, no big deal, it looks fine, as long as they all line up.
Now, once you have all the lock nuts on the bolts from the catback, go ahead and tighten then down all the way. A torque wrench would be a good idea here, but I didn't use one, I just tightened them down all the way until I couldn't anymore. Your tips will most likely be misaligned at this point, but don't worry. Push and pull on the pipes coming from the mufflers until they line up. Once you get them aligned, have someone hold them in place while you tighten the two clamps, provided by Bassani, where the X-Pipe mates with the factory stright pipes. Check alignment after you are done with that, and then check for leaks.
Sorry, turned into more of an install document than a lessons learned. Hopefully this will save someone out there from getting as frustrated as I was on a Sunday afternoon.
Good Luck!
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