Quote:
Originally Posted by helloelectro
OK, so I hopped in under the car today and was able to make some more adjustments. In my opinion, what Dinan attempted to solve in design, failed a bit in function.
I ended up loosening all the clamps and the hanger nut. I then twisted the front pipe as much as I could to bring the first elbow up leveling it as much as I could. It honestly doesn't look like it did much but it was enough to crate the gap needed over the crossmember.
Where I think it is causing people a problem is that the part over the cross member sags
when the clamps are not yet tight. So even though you are making adjustments at the rear and middle by twisting the pipes, you are doing so with weight in the middle clamp causing a droop.
To combat this I first made sure the midpipe was pushed from the muffler end as far forward as reasonably possible, so there was more pipe overlap in the middle, then I took my hydraulic jack and set it right at the middle clamp and slightly jacked up the pipe. This seemed to give a better seating on the two mid pipe connections while i tightened everything and also let the rear clamp settle properly on the muffler so it wasn't sagging all silly like when making the rear adjustment.
I have good clearance now over the cross member, no rattle and the tail pipes are in a good position.
Be careful if you jack the pipe, your just trying to "hold" it in position. You don't want to bend it or push it up into the heat shield and damage anything.
Hope this helps, and god speed. For what should be a simple plug and play, I felt like I was solving one of those puzzles you buy at Cracker Barrel.
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I have had the dinan midpipe and exhaust for the last 8 months and the clamp holding the two mid pipes has come lose twice. When the clamp comes loose, it causes the mid pipe to sag and rattle on the cross member. My exhaust is also hanging to low.
The first time i brought in my car for the rattle + the exhaust being to low, BMW fixed the rattle but said there is nothing they can do about the exhaust. My car started to rattle again last week, but instead of taking it back to BMW, today i took it to an exhaust shop to put it on a lift to see exactly whats going on.
As we suspected, the clamp holding the midpipe together was loose so we pushed both midpipes back together and re tightened the clamp which stopped the rattle but the mid pipe is barely clearing the cross member. Slightly pushing up on the muffler (to the point where the tips fit flush in the rear diffuser) also moved the midpipe roughly an inch above the cross member.
My plan going forward is to buy smaller exhaust hangers which will solve the exhaust hanging to low and stop the midpipe from hitting the cross member. If the clamp comes lose again we are just going to weld the clamp together.