So, here I was with a crush bent exhaust, with an ugly dynomax muffler where I pre-silencer should be, nasty crush bent tubing back to a nice dynomax. Ugly and nice being relative; the front muffler and the crush bent tubing were quite restrictive.
I go and order the pre-silencer that matches my downpipe, and the two gaskets required. Now I need to find somebody to build me a nice bit of mandrel bent exhaust. A short, simple, section from the pre-silencer to the muffler.
A friend recommends Stebro to me, but I think they might be a little expensive, so I continue calling around. Robson Racing is always advertising mandrel bent exhaust so I give them a call. The mechanic, Craig, knows my car as a friend of his used to own it. He's also familiar with the Racing Beat 3" downpipe and pre-silencer setup I'm using.
Now I'm on the phone with Robson, talking with them, and I ask for a rough quote over the phone. Several hours later with no call back, I call them again to find out about the quote. I assume the front desk had to talk with Craig. Anyway, the quote comes back as "Should be about $150 in mild steel, and $250 in stainless." In knowing that I thought I'd wait a bit for the winter to come to a close before doing the new exhaust.
Less than a month later I call them again and talk with them about it. Everything seems fine so I make a next-day appointment to get the exhaust done. Not thinking to get a written estimate, or a new quote upon arriving, they're off to do the work. I walked in wanting a stainless exhaust; since they said $250 roughly, I assumed $350. Always assume high, right?
First problem. They don't have flanges that match those on the pre-silencer. So much for them being familiar with the exhaust. No problem, though, there's a machine shop across from Robsons that will make us a flange. So, now I think to myself, okay, $400 ain't bad -- on the extremely high side now, considering we started at $250.
Next problem is still part of the first problem. I arrived at Robsons about 8:30am; my appointment was at 9am. They started early. When we encountered the flange problem the machine shop promised a flange by noon. Robson called over with specifying the shape or smoothness. We got the "flange" sometime between 1:30pm and 1:45pm ... a 5" circle with a 3" hole in the middle. Not smoothed at all. Send the 6 flanges back across the street after giving them an outline this time. About 20 minutes later a single flange comes back looking okay.
So now the fun begins and Craig starts building the exhaust. He measures and looks and plays -- I can only see a little bit of what's going on since I'm in the waiting area and the work bench is hidden. Craig goes upstairs and comes back down with a big mandrel bent U-bend ... I'm sitting there thinking to myself, "Geez, that bend looks awful tight. Well, these guys know what they're doing." A little while later Craig heads back upstairs and comes down with a long straight section of tubing. Okay, now we're cooking with gas.
So, I'm vegging out up front and finally Rob (the owner) says Craig is nearly done and I can go look. I go in and I'm looking, and I'm seeing a whole bunch of short sections welded together. No smooth, beautiful curves. But, I'm pretty reserved. You can only ask for so much at $250, right?
I'm a little bummed, but I'm damn happy to be getting out of there finally. I've been waiting for the car the entire day and it's pushing 4pm. The time wasn't bad since Rob warned me that it might take all day. But there were no other cars in the shop and Craig and I probably chatted for atleast an hour while waiting for the flanges.
On top of all this, since they only had a single flange, I have a single piece exhaust from the pre-silencer back to the tailpipe. The muffler isn't flanged as I'd originally requested. Fine, don't care, just get me out of here.
Okay. It's done and they're going to give the car a wash on the way out while the bill is getting written up. A very nice gesture.
Qty Description Cost
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2 Exhaust Hangers $ 18.90
1 Exhaust `O'-ring (aka hanger) $ 9.45
1 3" SS U-bend $159.95
1/2 3" SS Pipe $ 85.00
1 Custom Flange $ 24.00
4 Nuts $ 1.00
8 Washers $ 2.00
4 Bolts $ 2.00
Welding Supplies $ 25.00
3 SS Hangers $ 45.00
Black Paint $ 5.00
Subtotal: $378.30
Labour to fabricate exhaust $262.50
Hand Wash $ 0.00
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Subtotal: $640.80
GST: $ 44.86
PST: $ 51.26
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Total: $736.92
Whoa! Real close to that estimate of $250, eh? At this point I'm pissed and I'm trying not to make a scene. I just want to get out and actually try the exhaust -- maybe if it works well I won't be so pissed.
Okay, it works, and it doesn't leak, although I am just not impressed with the quality and the fact that "mandrel bent" means welding little sections of mandrel bent pipe together.
This happened on March 16, 1999. On March 19, 1999 I was out at my regular mechanic, Hartin Automotive 613-272-3146, and as we put the car on the hoist a couple of comments about the quality of the exhaust were made. When I mentioned the cost, jaws hit the floor.
So, there you have it. That's my Robson Racing story. The exhaust works, but it's not clean, and it's definitely not what I would call mandrel bent. Should I ever do another exhaust, and want it mandrel bent, I'll be calling the Stebro guys. If I ever need to weld together sections of pipe without getting raked over the coals cost wise, I'll call Jim at Hartin Automotive.
To summarize, building a roughly 5 foot section of exhaust with 3 small bends in it cost $736.92 on a $250 telephone quote, and so far as I'm concerned it's very difficult to call it "mandrel bent".
Glen McCready