Cobra exhaust manifold questions...

Speed King

New member
A blown cat on my '95 has moved up my timetable for a cobra manifold install. I managed to source the manifolds (3R3E-9430/1-BB) and am in the process of acquiring the steering shaft pieces, but I still have a few questions about this swap....

1) Flanges
I haven't had any luck finding flanges to connect the manifolds to the rest of the exhaust. In particular the passenger manifold needs an oval shaped flange. Are these available new anywhere? If the flanges need to be removed from a mustang H-pipe, what years / engine sizes will interchange? I'd probably have a better chance of pulling a winning Powerball than finding an '03 Cobra in the junkyard...

2) To Cat or not to Cat?
At present, there is no pollution testing where I'm at, so I don't NEED cats, but I see two potential issues. 1) The car is as loud as I want it right now with the stock manifolds / cats paired with X-pipe + 2.5" mandrel tubes and 2) Wouldn't a 'too free flowing' exhaust on an otherwise stock engine kill your low end power?
Or I could delete cats and replace the X-pipe with a mid muffler. Thoughts?

3) AIR system
As I understand, on a Gen 1 you can simply cap the AIR system without generating any CELs. Is this accurate?

4) Tune
I'll be deleting EGR on this swap, so obviously I need a tune. It appears that Lonnie, Geno, and Dennis are all out of business and the only off the shelf chips I can find are from SCP. Anybody have any experience with Bill's tunes?
Here in town, DB Performance seems to do good work with tunes, but a full-on dyno tune seems like overkill just to disable EGR. Not to mention that I'll have to do this again when I get around to installing gears.

Thanks in advance for any feedback
 

driller

El Presidente
1. Flanges
You're going to need downpipes fabricated, so any good exhaust shop will have the flanges. The shop that did my install on the '96 did not have any issues.

2. To Cat or not to Cat?
In my experience, it will be louder without the cats. If that is a concern, get aftermarket cats installed.

3. AIR system
I did not have any CEL after disabling the AIR system.

4. Tune
I don't have any personal experience with tuning products from SCP but I have not heard of any unsatisfied customers with his chips.
 
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