Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Group Buy Y-Pipe Brullen

welcome to my world, i just thought i was crazy since i was the first to not fit. i emailed allesondro last thursday and he said he was visiting Brullen later that day and he would get back to me shortly....almost a week and 2 emails later, no response yet.

I'm leaving to attempt to get mine installed here in 45 minutes. I will be quite disturbed and irritated if it doesn't work, after waiting so long for the GB to get going, getting the money for it, then waiting 3 weeks to a month for it to arrive.

Welp, no thanks to the design of the y-pipe, it's on. If it weren't for the greatest, nicest, most cooperative exhaust worker/mechanic in the entire KC area, it wouldn't have been possible. In the end, he had to cut off about 6 inches of the y-pipe on the long side, to be able to weld another pipe in there so that it'd all connect. He had the right tools, he had the skill, I couldn't have asked for a better man to do the job. I thank him very much for that, and after it all, he charged me a measily $50. For the work he did, the tools he used, the parts he gave me, it was easily a $100 job. Perhaps he saw the anger, despair, and frustration on my face when he lined up the pipe and showed me the 2 inch gap. After a little customization, the pipe was aligned and had about 3-4 inches of new piping connecting the y-pipe to the pre-cat. At least the other part lined up. One of them had to I suppose. From there, it wasn't too bad. The cat was rubbing up against the bottom of the car a bit, so he put a little rubber stopper inbetween it and the car, then went on to weld the end of the cat (couldn't use the flange because I already have the SVT cat-back on there) to where the resonator would be (don't have one, soon to be a glasspack). In the end, I had no leaks, everything was sealed up tight, and I tell ye what. If anyone is ever in the KC area and needs exhaust work done. I won't hesitate one split second to go to this guy. He's amazing. But that's a little off subject. Basically, the y-pipe was way off, like I said, about 2 inches on one of the flanges. I was quite frustrated when he initally put it up to my car and showed me the #%&^ up. To the un-trained eye, there was no way in hell that was gonna fit. He made it fit. Thank god. As far as the actual pipe and cat, I noticed what I think is a bit of a power gain. I can't be sure because I'm really bad at the whole butt dyno thing. The best I can describe it, is the car feels a bit more free. Doesn't feel like it lags as much at higher rpms and all. As far as the sound, it has a nice growl, from what I can hear. I still haven't heard it from the outside. Keep in mind, the y-pipe and cat is coupled with no resonator, which I will soon fix, as I said, with putting a glasspack in there. Because of having no resonator, there's a lot of rasp at high rpms when the engine is cold, and a little normally. I'm rather positive that's not because of the y-pipe and cat though. Add a glasspack to that and I imagine I'll have one scary sounding Contour.

Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, I won't be doing business with Brullen for a while unless they can somehow convince me otherwise and regain my trust. It's ridiculous how far off the pipe was to fitting. Luckily, I had the right man to do the job.

P.S. Thanks for your hard work on this GB Cuervo. I don't think you should worry about contacting Brullen concering these design flaws, let the people who have them contact them. That way, they can better express their anger towards them about this. I know I will.

does anybody know a better or more successful way of at least contacting these guys?! I have emailed several times and left a voicemail at PF, I also PM'd Bradness(co-owner of PF) to no avail. This seems to be the way it always is on internet sales lately. I have bought 4 thing so far that I need to talk to the company about or did not receive my product at all, and nobody ever responds back at all!! The others are no big deal, but this one is 300 dollars and a long wait!! This whole thing is getting ridiculous. Anybody? Cuervo?

I don't wanna step on anyones toes, but I'm gonna have to do this:

Brullen Exhaust = 905-415-7733

I've tried to get ahold of them for about a month now, but my new schedula isn't making this easy.

I certainly don't want the folks who are feeling bad about the pipe to feel worse; if you nice people like your car nearly as much as I like mine I know you must be punch-the-wall frustrated, and I feel your pain.

That said, here's a success story....

My pipe was professionally installed for a very reasonable $50. Whole process didn't take 70 minutes. I handed the keys over @ 08:10, hung around, walked out for coffee, and when I walked back @ 09:20, my 'Tour was sitting in the parking lot.

The arms of the Y went on seamlessly; my guy made a small adjustment (OK, he bent the existing pipe, not the Brullen pipe, and only just a hair) to line up at the back. No exhaust leaks, no muss or fuss.

Sound difference: Imperceptible (my installer mentioned that immediately). No rasp on warmup, no drone at street or freeway speeds. This is the only exhaust mod I've done; I'm still considering changing the resonator to a Magnaflow (installer insisted that I get an offset, not a straight-thru, and he's the boss.) The stock res looks to be a hair over 19".

Performance : Boy, howdy.
Definitely more oomph under 3.5K rpm, and lots more fun when floored in 3rd gear.
I hit one of my favorite on-ramps, wrapped it to 6K, and closed on merging traffic quicker than I expected. Very pleased.

I'm a "green" person (I recycle everything!); one of the reasons I like this car is its good performance while still getting good gas mileage (it's averaged a very decent 25 mpg).
I will be checking the next few tankfuls post-pipe installation to see what's what in that department.

Again, thanks to SVTCuervo for the work. Great mod.
Hoping it works our for the everyone else.
Thanks again for all suggestions-advice-data on pipe size, resonator-replacement models, etc.
I'll be checking the thread, hoping for more good news from the group.

Well i tried to install my ypipe today, but since my car is highly resistant to mods, i havent even made it far enough to remove the stock y, yet.

first, one of the nuts holding the y to the rear manifold siezed up, and the bolt snapped when i got impatient with it... this is not good, as the bolt is pressed into the flange on the exhaust manifold...

and secondly, one of the nuts holding the catback exhaust to the ypipe is rounded off... and i cant get it off.. i tried tightening a vicegrips as tight as i could on the nut and tried getting it off that way, but no luck. i'll have to drill it out i guess.

I did line everything up under the car, and all seemed to line up decently. the bend in the rear bank of the brullen does look like itll come super close to hitting the oilpan drain plug... thats gonna be a beyyyotch if i have to take the ypipe off everytime i wanna change the oil.

Well, good news has arrived through Allesondro finally. He said they will ship me a replacement pipe and I will just ship my old pipe to a warehouse in CA somewhere. Sounds good to me, I just hope the next one fits. He said it was most likely due to the guy that usually did the pipes left and the newer guy must have not done it exactly right.

man, what an install. mine was a little off so i had an exhaust leak all due to a busted stud. i had to go to a shop and have them torch it off yet they eventually did some work on it and got it to be a flush.

definitely reduced the rasp i had with my gutted precats and pacesetter exhaust. as for more power, i guess i can feel it a little but nothing too big to jump up and down about.

so what did a walk away with, a nicer sound, a minor increase in power yet compared with the stock ypipe, a nice weight reduction as well. i guess it was an alright purchase. now to get rid of this exhaust and get a trubendz one.