Fitting Sportex exhausts on Essex V6 Capri

You can RANT and RAVE to your hearts content here instead of clogging up the Q&A Technical Forum!
Report any offensive posts to [email protected]
Post Reply
Mr B
Donator
Donator
Posts: 635
Joined: Fri Dec 09, 2016 9:07 am
Car(s): Four 3 litre Capri's and 2 Mark 1 GXL's

Fitting Sportex exhausts on Essex V6 Capri

Post by Mr B »

Hi all,

Having just spent 2 day's fitting Sportex exhausts to my car I thought I would share my experience in case anyone else is contemplating taking this job on.

Unless you have access to a ramp then you will need 4 axle stands (2 front and 2 back) for the clearance and for your personal safety - you are going to be spending a lot of time under the car and you will need as much room for manoeuvre as possible.

I started by cutting off the old exhausts with an angle grinder, I didn't even attempt to separate the old piece's of exhaust as they looked like they had been on the car forever, but the grinder made short work of them, removing the exhaust support brackets from their rubber mountain points is a pain in the arse.

With the old exhausts or what's left of them now off the car it was time to put the new pipes on, the Sportex kit for my model contains 2 rear boxes, 2 centre boxes, 2 middle pipes, 2 centre box support brackets and 2 connectors/adaptors to connect the Sportex pipes to standard Essex manifolds, I started by putting the back boxes on first as they have very little if any adjustment so I thought they would make a good starting point in getting everything square, the rear boxes have brackets welded to them which hook up to the mountain points on the car via the standard 'figure of 8' mountain rubber, however, it soon became apparent that the fixed brackets on the boxes are woefully to short and if used with the standard rubbers the pipes will jam up against the rear valence, luckily I had some spare universal mountain rubbers which are bigger in height and this allowed me to fit the boxes and get the required clearance from the valence.

The next issue was with the centre box support brackets that are supplied with the kit - they simply do not fit 3.0 or 2.8 cars as the supplied brackets are wider than the floor brackets on the car which means the mountain rubbers do not line up and will not push all the way on and under normal use will keep popping off, for some reason the floor bracket on the 4 cylinder model's, for which these brackets were obviously designed for, is wider than those of the 6 cylinder cars, my car used to be a 1.6 laser so the passenger side bracket does match, for the drivers side I have just pushed the rubbers on as best as I can until I can source a 4 cylinder floor bracket to replace the current 6 cylinder bracket.

So to sum up, the rest of the exhaust piece's went together well and the sound is really nice but your going to have to work for it especially if your working on your own laying on the floor, the sound of the pipes is much better than that of the Peter Lloyd pipes that came off although to be honest the Sportex pipes look almost identical to the Peter Lloyd's to me....perhaps made by the same people...who knows, who cares, I'm going for a beer or two...

Wayne
If an honest man is wrong and after demonstrating that he is wrong he either stops being wrong or stops being honest
User avatar
Jasonmarie
Donator
Donator
Posts: 4707
Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2015 12:30 am
Car(s): Ford Capri 2.0 Laser Mercury Grey 1987 hobby .
Mercedes Vito tourer 2.1 Big Bus Daily Driver
Location: Kent

Re: Fitting Sportex exhausts on Essex V6 Capri

Post by Jasonmarie »

You made that sound easier Wayne then it really was , I have heard from almost everybody there a pain to fit , my worry is how many miles we will get from them .
Hope you enjoyed that beer well deserved. :beer:
Ford Capri 2.0 Laser 1987 Mercury Grey ....... :beer:
User avatar
Andrew 2.8i
Donator
Donator
Posts: 14724
Joined: Sat Jan 25, 2014 7:38 pm
Car(s): '83 2.8 Injection (sunny days only)
'04 Toyota MR2 (owned from new)
Location: Ceredigion
Contact:

Re: Fitting Sportex exhausts on Essex V6 Capri

Post by Andrew 2.8i »

Hi Wayne,
My car had a Sportex Exhaust already fitted when I bought it, so I didn't have to endure the pain of fitting it!
Which leads me to my point. CCI sell two different brackets for the centre silencer -a wide and a narrow version. Yes, it's for the "club" exhaust system, but as we all know it's the same as Sportex.
http://capriclub.co.uk/Exhausts-Manifolds?page=1

:goodluck:

Andrew.
Image
andyd
Posts: 8268
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2014 10:43 am
Car(s): 1981 XR3
Location: Devon

Re: Fitting Sportex exhausts on Essex V6 Capri

Post by andyd »

I can confirm Peter Lloyd were/are Sportex systems, and as Andrew says CCI and Tickover also sell Sportex manifolds and downpipes!

Glad you got it sorted eventually, as this sort of job is never as easy as it looks :roll: Sounds great though :D :D

:goodluck:
Mr B
Donator
Donator
Posts: 635
Joined: Fri Dec 09, 2016 9:07 am
Car(s): Four 3 litre Capri's and 2 Mark 1 GXL's

Re: Fitting Sportex exhausts on Essex V6 Capri

Post by Mr B »

Morning all,

If I gave the impression that it was an easy job then that is wrong, 6 weeks worth of planning went in to this, I also purchased a cheap angle grinder specifically for this job
and still the job was a pain in the arse, in fact my partner would swear that at various times during the job she heard ramblings from under the car along the lines of 'I would rather take an engine out than do this' or 'should have paid Tickover to do this' I can neither confirm or deny this :banghead:

Also, I may have been a bit harsh on the Sportex pipes, those rear brackets that I said are woefully short if used with standard figure of 8 rubbers may not be at fault after all, I popped on to the CCI website this morning and they sell a rubber mountain kit for the exhausts and in the kit the rear rubbers are identical to the universal rubbers that I ended up using so it appears that the figure of 8 rubbers that were already on the rear of the car were not supposed to be there - they are meant for the centre box brackets only. Sorry Sportex

I believe I have worked out why the centre brackets are different widths as well, the 4 cylinder centre box is physically bigger than the 6 cylinder box(s) not sure but perhaps this is because it handles more explosions than the boxes on the V6 cars?

Wayne
If an honest man is wrong and after demonstrating that he is wrong he either stops being wrong or stops being honest
andyd
Posts: 8268
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2014 10:43 am
Car(s): 1981 XR3
Location: Devon

Re: Fitting Sportex exhausts on Essex V6 Capri

Post by andyd »

Mr B wrote:Morning all,

If I gave the impression that it was an easy job then that is wrong, 6 weeks worth of planning went in to this, I also purchased a cheap angle grinder specifically for this job
and still the job was a pain in the arse, in fact my partner would swear that at various times during the job she heard ramblings from under the car along the lines of 'I would rather take an engine out than do this' or 'should have paid Tickover to do this' I can neither confirm or deny this :banghead:

Also, I may have been a bit harsh on the Sportex pipes, those rear brackets that I said are woefully short if used with standard figure of 8 rubbers may not be at fault after all, I popped on to the CCI website this morning and they sell a rubber mountain kit for the exhausts and in the kit the rear rubbers are identical to the universal rubbers that I ended up using so it appears that the figure of 8 rubbers that were already on the rear of the car were not supposed to be there - they are meant for the centre box brackets only. Sorry Sportex

I believe I have worked out why the centre brackets are different widths as well, the 4 cylinder centre box is physically bigger than the 6 cylinder box(s) not sure but perhaps this is because it handles more explosions than the boxes on the V6 cars?

Wayne
Any aftermarket exhaust can be a pain.
Some years ago I got a mobile mechanic to put Janspeeds on my 3.0, and the flange holes at the front wouldn't match up with the holes in the original downpipes :swear: He had to take the system away and elongate the holes to get the bolts through! Cost a small fortune in labour..... Nightmare :doh:
Mr B
Donator
Donator
Posts: 635
Joined: Fri Dec 09, 2016 9:07 am
Car(s): Four 3 litre Capri's and 2 Mark 1 GXL's

Re: Fitting Sportex exhausts on Essex V6 Capri

Post by Mr B »

Although after market performance exhausts have a bit of a bad rep I think it's important to remember that the car itself was never designed for these exhausts which have pipes that are normally of a bigger diameter than that of the originals so gaps and clearences become alot tighter especially around the rear axle area, however, a good fit can be achieved it just take's time....lots of time and patience, just don't have a swear box in the vicinity of the car whilst your doing it :swear:

Wayne
If an honest man is wrong and after demonstrating that he is wrong he either stops being wrong or stops being honest
Post Reply