Sunday 24 August 2014

The Third Cat Bypass Pipe

Believe it or not this is my third, yes third! R500 Cat Bypass Pipe... Well the first one was for a different model, so in reality this is my second, but even so I've spent a fair few quid on cat bypass pipes now!

The second pipe had to be cut to allow the Raceco exhaust to fit - which felt a little weird if I'm honest, as cutting a brand new pipe just didn't seem right.  Link to my post about cutting and fitting the Raceco exhaust and bypass pipe is here.

So the third pipe was so I could run the standard R500 silencer without the cat.  It arrived at the beginning of the week, and as has been the general theme with quality control from Caterham, the pipe was scratched somewhat.  I considered polishing it myself with the steel polishing kit I'd recently bought (link to polishing cat here) but I just couldn't be bothered, so I took it to a local polishers.
Brand new, but scratched Caterham R500 Duratec Cat Bypass Pipe.
Brand new, but scratched Caterham R500 Duratec Cat Bypass Pipe.
I left it with the polisher for a couple of days. He rang on Friday to say it was ready, and it really looked significantly improved.  The sheen was much better and all the scratches had been removed.
Freshly polished Caterham R500 Duratec Cat Bypass Pipe.
Freshly polished Caterham R500 Duratec Cat Bypass Pipe.
Today I got round to fitting it - not a long job, as I seem to have been swapping my exhaust configurations over quite a lot recently... I'm becoming an expert as I can do the swap in under ten minutes!
My Caterham R500 Duratec with Cat Bypass and Standard Silencer fitted.
My Caterham R500 Duratec with Cat Bypass and Standard Silencer fitted.
So I went out for a quick blat to see if I could notice any difference, and I'm not sure if it was the placebo effect or not, but the car seemed to accelerate a (very) little better (if that was possible!) and the noise was certainly improved too!

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