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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 1093
   
Location: An island off southern Tasmania. | I have decided that these are not worth getting.
Have had so many problems with bad fit, rubbing on the sump under hard acceleration, flanges not mating correctly, and they sound like crap.
My recommendation...do not buy.
The latest thing to piss me off is i had the car towed home last night...sounded like a big end had come loose.
Nope...bloody RPW extractors have a cheap chinese flexible coupling that disintegrates internally rattling around with such violence that it trips the knock sensor and ECU goes into limp mode.
They are coming off ASAP...enough is enough.
You would have sworn it was engine failure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAxBVTvbm6Y
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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 1093
Location: An island off southern Tasmania. | These extractors just keep going from bad to worse.
Found another problem on the firewall side...
these stupid 380 extractors from RPW just keep getting worse and worse...another crack found...
It's got shitty welds all over it this extractor kit.
Only 18 months old and falling apart.
If it was on the radiator side i would shrug my shoulders, but it's the firewall side, which really pisses me off.
Do not buy these bloody extractors, whoever fabricates them has NFI on how to do a continuos seam weld.
It's got harline cracks appearing all over the place.
700 bucks totally wasted in my opinion.
 (RPW weld failure firewall side 4.JPG)
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 RPW weld failure firewall side 4.JPG (156KB - 742 downloads)
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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 421
Location: Brisbane,qld | not good, i think Liverpool exhausts in Sydney makes them, what a pain in the ass, for that price they should be stainless |
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Frequent flyer Silver
Posts: 62
| Man, those welds dont even look like they touch the pipes.
Funny thing is they are blue like pacemaker extractors which are supposed to be pretty good.
Got warranty, use it, show them pictures of the welds, cracks etc.
No $600 wont get you stainless, i sell mild steel Genies (rebranded as Redback) and they are close to that price, i can assure you they are not making me rich so the price he paid sounds very fair.
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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 1093
Location: An island off southern Tasmania. | Godzilla - 22/10/2011 21:52
Man, those welds dont even look like they touch the pipes.
Funny thing is they are blue like pacemaker extractors which are supposed to be pretty good.
Got warranty, use it, show them pictures of the welds, cracks etc.
No $600 wont get you stainless, i sell mild steel Genies (rebranded as Redback) and they are close to that price, i can assure you they are not making me rich so the price he paid sounds very fair.
You are right mate, you get what you pay for, and the price wasnt a lot in terms of what one might spend.
But at the time its all that was and still is available for the 380.
I'm just pissed at how much work it will be to pull them off and put the stockies back in...and how long it took to find the limp home fault that was coming up randomly the last week.
Anyone with these extractors that gets intermittent performance issues should inspect the welds.
Early symptom was the rattle sound of what seemed like aloose heat shield when cold and at a particular rpm as well. |
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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 421
Location: Brisbane,qld | So was there any performance improvement with these compared to the dual TMR setup? |
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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 1093
Location: An island off southern Tasmania. | wsbtt - 23/10/2011 15:13
So was there any performance improvement with these compared to the dual TMR setup?
I reckon it was stuff all improvement, just a lot more money, more noise and more CEL's.
We got the bloody rear bank extractors out this afternoon.
Save yourself a lot of time..remove the drivers side driveshaft, else it will be impossible to get one of the bolts off.
Unplug the oxygen sensors on the firewall side just under the throttle body...lots of things in the way of course then simply push a flat blade in the plug clip...hard and pull on each plus (two man job)
I also removed the flange for the main exhaust pipe and moved it out of the way.
Remove the steering knuckle and lower wishbone clamp with 17mm sockets
and the axle bolt (32mm socket),
unbolt the TWO retaining bolts that hold the drivers side intermediate mount on (ball breaker task, needs universal, and three socket extensions and 14mm socket) both bolts are horizontally fitted, one is located by feel only...good luck 
then it's a piece of cake, surprisingly easy actually.
Here's what it looks like at the point of failure...i can see daylight through the cracks of number #3 and number #2 was about to break through as well.
I am seriously pissed off with this extractor kit.
 (rpw extractor failure cylinder 3.JPG)
 (rpw extractor failure cylider 2.JPG)
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rpw extractor failure cylinder 3.JPG (102KB - 710 downloads)
rpw extractor failure cylider 2.JPG (107KB - 751 downloads)
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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 1093
Location: An island off southern Tasmania. | Went to Exhaust Brothers in geelong and showed them the damaged RPW headers.
20 minutes and $30 later i'm driving away with some meaty reinforced extractors.
Then broke my balls for two hours getting the bloody things back in.
I love having a hoist at home....
It fired up sounding surprisingly quieter, maybe she's had a small crack for a long time?
oh well...time to go for a fang.... |
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Frequent flyer Silver
Posts: 62
| Have your mixtures checked on a dyno, without trying to sound like a smart arse, to have so many fail near the welds points to overheating from running lean.
One other question that may answer my first comment, is it on LPG? If so ill take back my first comment......Normal.  |
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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 1093
Location: An island off southern Tasmania. | Godzilla - 25/10/2011 22:05
Have your mixtures checked on a dyno, without trying to sound like a smart arse, to have so many fail near the welds points to overheating from running lean.
One other question that may answer my first comment, is it on LPG? If so ill take back my first comment......Normal.
yeah it's LPG...can't you tell by the white pipe? i ran it on petrol to eliminate as many sub systems as possible when looking for the fault....so that explains the black bits...lol
Dyno shows AFR average about 12-13
Here is what she sounds like at half throttle.....
wasn't me driving, just a timid kid.
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extractors on GT and 12 psi boost-half throttle.MPG (5870KB - 755 downloads)
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Frequent flyer Silver
Posts: 62
| Ive seen white on petrol too, especially ones with blown head gaskets or running too lean..........
Its a well known fact that excessive heat, usually caused in petrol engines running lean or LPG engines where the exhaust temps are higher than normal, can and eventually will crack headers/extractors, most commonly around the welds.
Genie as an example tells people on certain models that have a tendency to go lean after freeing up the exhaust, that if their mixtures are not reset, the headers will develop cracks from the excessive heat.
Also one more point, cat converters, with headers, always run metal substrate cats as the cheaper ceramic ones will get too hot and crumble inside from the higher temps brought down the pipe from the freer flowing headers, obviously if going LPG same story.
Combine LPG and headers....hand on and a supercharger .....man your looking for trouble. LOL |
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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 1093
Location: An island off southern Tasmania. | Godzilla - 27/10/2011 22:18
Ive seen white on petrol too, especially ones with blown head gaskets or running too lean..........
Its a well known fact that excessive heat, usually caused in petrol engines running lean or LPG engines where the exhaust temps are higher than normal, can and eventually will crack headers/extractors, most commonly around the welds.
Genie as an example tells people on certain models that have a tendency to go lean after freeing up the exhaust, that if their mixtures are not reset, the headers will develop cracks from the excessive heat.
Also one more point, cat converters, with headers, always run metal substrate cats as the cheaper ceramic ones will get too hot and crumble inside from the higher temps brought down the pipe from the freer flowing headers, obviously if going LPG same story.
Combine LPG and headers....hand on and a supercharger .....man your looking for trouble. LOL
yeah the cheap ceramic cat failed whithin amonths and they replaced it under warranty with a metal unit a while back....
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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 1093
Location: An island off southern Tasmania. | Well i bit the bullet today.
Started at 3pm and had the stock exhaust in by 6 pm.
But it took to 9pm to get the oxygen sensor that someone had cross threaded in the rear cat out....re-threaded and a bung put in.
Absolute ball breaker of a job, but brute force and lotsa trips to the bench and it is now a full three catalytic system.
And it sounds sooooo stock, I forgot what a GT is supposed to sound like.
Might have lost 5 kw atw...MEH...who cares, it sounds great now and still pulls like a pack of mules....no rattles or vibrations....
If I was doing the extractor upgrade again me thinks custom stainless will be the go...
The RPW extractors are definitely a bad, bad move. |
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Frequent flyer Silver
Posts: 62
| On a supercharged LPG setup i think any mild steel header will fail.
I dont know if stainless will be any better, however you could be right. |
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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 1093
Location: An island off southern Tasmania. | Godzilla - 31/10/2011 23:06
On a supercharged LPG setup i think any mild steel header will fail.
I dont know if stainless will be any better, however you could be right.
the stock pipes are welded completely differently, but it sounds and drives so much nicer....bugger the extra few kw me thinks... |
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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 1093
Location: An island off southern Tasmania. | Rang RPW yesterday and spoke to David there to let him know of my disappointments with the $700 extractor kit.
After a bit of brain storming we found the problem.
RPW have used the existing MAGNA front headers for the 380 kit and the accompanying jig.
The rear bank are completely new and are mated to the front MAGNA ones, and...a different person welded the rear bank.
It could even be that the fronts are old stock and the new have been fabricated later to make up the kit.
The two different people had different welding techniques....I had no problems with the front bank...only the rear bank. |
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Frequent flyer Silver
Posts: 62
| Sounds plausible.
Did you mention the LPG and S/C setup, if so what was his opinion for the extra heat generated?
No problem?
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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 1093
Location: An island off southern Tasmania. | Godzilla - 7/11/2011 22:19
Sounds plausible.
Did you mention the LPG and S/C setup, if so what was his opinion for the extra heat generated?
No problem?
His response was that he was prepared to weld them again for me....but the freight to WA and back?....nahhhhhhh |
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Frequent flyer Bronze
Posts: 33
| I had a set of RPW Extractors installed a couple years ago and ever since it's just had a raspy metallic rattle. I have had the crossover point welded so that the pipes don't rattle. I know the welds along the flanges are all fine, I checked them before they went on. Could be the flex pipes broken or cracked internally, or even the two flex pipes rubbing together since they do sit almost right up against the one another. I don't know, but I'm thinking it could even be an exhaust leak also since it reeks of exhaust when I start it up cold.
I have a feeling it could be the exhaust manifold gasket, although a manifold gasket leak is usually very loud isn't it?
The reason I feel like it might be a leak at the manifold is that the dodgy exhaust place I went to (I will never go there again) just wanted to get the car out of their shop because they soon realised how much of a pain in the arse it is to get the headers on. I reckon they just chucked them on, did a half arsed job of tightening it all up and just gave the car back to me.
What's the best way of getting to the rear header bolts without having to resort to taking the drive shaft out? Obviously that's one of the biggest obstructions, but I'd like to avoid that if possible. It's so tight I can't find an easy way to get anything up there. I was thinking maybe taking the inlet manifold off, I'd be able to reach the bolts from the top? If there is an easier way without having to remover anything, please let me know. Even just the bolts on the flanges near the flex pipes have clearance issues and I can't get a socket around some of them.
Edited by Perry's 380 VRX 26/8/2016 01:14
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Frequent flyer Gold
Posts: 1093
Location: An island off southern Tasmania. | the rear manifold bolt furthest on drivers side can be got at with a double extension and a universal on a socket...but requires patience...has to be threaded through steering and other stuff.
you will never get it back on to reinstall though.
take the drive shaft out and its a piece of cake...can be done in an hour...
I know what your problem is...
the welds have failed on the pipe to flange..the front ones were the magna ones...the rears were fabricated by a schoolkid...mine failed same way.
trust me taking the shaft out is the easiest way...not rocket science either. |
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