Edited to add:
This is an old thread. Megan Racing has since updated their test pipes with flex joints (the only people to have them) and there have been very few reported problems.

Cheers to Megan Racing for taking the feedback of forum users into consideration when making their new products!


Yeah, i knew i shouldn't have bought these pieces of junk... I had just blown out my Ultimate Racing cats and needed something to get me back on the road and these were very cheap.

Well, you pay what you get for... which in the case of Megan Racing test pipes was a poorly welded piece of equipment.

I had the pipes on my car for a whopping total of 5 days...

I was very stoked at first because the butt-dyno definitely registered an increase in both low-level torque and mid-range hp, and they sounded AWESOME with my nismo exhaust. I turned heads at every stoplight with the loud, lopey idle that you could really hear with this setup.

Everything was going great until about 11pm, while driving to work my exhaust got VERY loud (like a Harley) and i heard clanging from the underside of my car!!! My first thought is "oh crap, after 30k miles of abuse, i've finally blown this bullet-proof motor", but the car kept running, so i knew something weird was up. I pulled into the first gas station I came to and noticed that the driver's side rear O2 sensor was laying on the ground, still attached to the bung and the non-fouler. The entire piece had ripped off the test pipe and I now had a gaping hole directly in the pipe.

Well, I had to get to work and there was nowhere to tie the O2 sensor up, so I clipped it off with my leatherman and drove my new "Harley Z" to work.

I know this engine moves around a lot when you start modding it heavily, but I have a Y pipe with flexible sections and an engine dampener... you figure this thing probably didn't fail due to torquing of the test pipe, it's just ****ty craftsmanship.


For anyone who is in the market for test pipe -- don't go with Megan Racing!!! Pay just a little more and you'll get more piece of mind

I'm looking at a set of APS pipes as a replacement as their quality is quite a bit better -- really wish I would have just gone with them in the first place. If anyone has any suggestions for other test pipes, let me know!

 

I have megan racing resonated test pipes and over 10k on them.. they are still good. BTW ur test pipes fail not b/c of the engine movement but because of your exhoust and y pipe movement. when you take your cats out you are removing 2 mounting point locations witch support your exhoust. if you dont support it in anyway this could/will happen. If you think about it, you are supporting your whole exhoust from the headers all the way back to the rear mounting point...... the weight of the exhoust and road conditions will put more stess on the pipes.

also the clanging sound is your Y pipe and /or ur exhoust hitting the top side of the mid underbrace. your whole exhoust is moving up and down as you drive and banging on it also causing stress to the test pipes. there has been allot of these same accident with other products.

 

But after only 5 days?

 

Well, i don't think it was movement of the exhaust, because I removed the mounting support you are speaking of when I put the U/R cats on there over 20k miles ago, and they only failed after 3 straight months of daily 170mph WOT runs for about 20 minutes a day.

The fact that a weld is what failed only points towards poor craftsmanship and particularly poor welding. Yeah, I could stop my *****ing and just reweld the bung on there, but I'm asking myself if I just want to find out where the next weakest weld is? Would you want to be on the receiving end of a detatched O2 sensor w/ non-fouler and bung traveling at 160mph+? That would suck! (Not to mention what it could do to the underside of my car).

If anything the purpose of the Y-pipe is to dampen vibrations and movement (hence the mesh sections) coming from down the exhaust system due to torquing of the entire engine, and since the only place the test pipes were attached were at the manifolds and the Y-pipe, there shouldn't be much shear stress on the middle section (where the bung is located). Torsional stress, i can understand, but not shear.

[edit]
oh, and the clanging (which sounded like a cross between a bent rod hitting the block and massive detonation), was most certainly the O2 sensor + non-fouler + bung falling down, hitting the road at high speeds and getting kicked back up into my exhaust piping...
[/edit]


seriously... a total disappointment

 

This thread needs some photos.

 

Tell us something we don't know.

 

i wish I had some -- car is in Germany and i'm in Afghanistan

 

This is definitely not the first time I've heard someone complain about Megan stuff.

 

First of all I have the same test pipes and I like them. They are cheap and do the job, but you get what you pay for.

Problems I've noticed with the megans namely O2 bung location. all the ones Ive seen have been welded below paralel (pointed down). This is a BIG no no because water will collect around your O2 sensor and shortining the life. But another issue is the O2 sensor it self. With out the anti-fouler's the end of the O2 sensor is at most level with the bottom of the exhaust. With the anti-foulers the extra 3/4 to and inch pushes every thing below the exaust piping closer to the road.

This were in lies the problem you experenced. You O2 sensor is more suseptable to damage. Pot holes, speed bumps, and the occasional 2X4 are now your nemisis. Megan is not realy known for the quality of the welds so the first thing to go would be the weld arround the bung. The issue with the welds is robably due to the use of lower current when they were fabing up the pipes. You got stainless (which is hard to weld in the first place) and lack of proper current; all makes for brittle welds.

When I had my second O2 bung welded on for my AF guage I had the machine shop check out the welds. There were only a few places that were realy bad enough to fix. So I guess I got lucky on the pipes.

My solution for you is A) dont be a cheap @ss and buy some good tests so if they break you have a leg to stand on B) take your current TP's to a machine shop and have proper O2 bungs welded at or above the 90 so you aleviate those issues, and while they are at it they can check out the other welds. The cheapest option is B.

 

i had a friend blow the welds on a set of megan headers. the worst part, it was for a scion tc. 160 whopping hp lol. there was govs of weld near the collector. it was a **** job.

 

thanks for the heads up...almost committed to some this weekend

 

I have a customer car on the lift right now with a meagan Y pipe that cracked. It lasted 6 days what a bunch of garbage.

 

someone forward this thread to megan

 

i have intense power resonated pipes which i was told are made by megan and i hate them, when i let off the throttle they rattle bad and they are brand new.

 

^ think intense powers are made by topspeed.

 

I got 18k out of my Megan Test pipes, no weld brakes either just the metal webbing started to brake on the instide and rattle really bad. I honostly like megan and was very pleased of the quality and sound I got from the test pipes, and ypipe. But maybe I just got lucky.

I bought some Xerd test pipes and I dont like the sound near as much as the megan.

 

To reiterate, this is not a problem with the test pipes, it is related to the exhaust system you are using. The Nismo has the most problem with this.

 

I was really considering getting those megan test pipes. this is a problem it appears with may things i see on the forums, sometimes things work and sometimes they break... I guess it is just luck....

btw Machupo were these bought from ebay or from Megan themselves? Just wondering if they sell the lower quality ones on ebay as opposed to better ones from the factory with warranties???

 

got mine on ebay used and still got 18k