[s-cars] Europrice - RS2 Exhaust Manifold Group Purchase, Phase 3

[Fifield, Douglas]

OK, it's in.  Took me about eight to ten hours including the hour and a half
trip to the stealer to pick up the only solenoid valve in town (the plastic
T fitting on the bottom snapped off during disassembly).  Other than that,
it was pretty straight forward.

I made the tooling modifications mentioned in the write-ups - two 12 mm
combination wrenches and one 15 mm combination - bent and ground as noted.
I had to cut the box end off one of the 12 mm wrenches about 1 inch up the
shank from the box to clear hard coolant lines while tightening the number 4
and 5 nuts on the shortened bottom studs.

I also had to cut all six bolts holding the down pipe to the exhaust pipes.
I replaced with metric stainless and nyloc nuts.  Not sure the nyloc will
tolerate the heat.  Any thoughts?  This was yesterday (Sunday) when all the
dealers were closed.

Now, the funny thing.  The butt dyno says I have lost some oomph.  I am
running an MTM Stage 1 chip and before the swap, when I put my foot to the
floor, I could hear the turbo spool and got that "push in the back" feeling
as the boost came on.  Now, when I put it down, I don't hear the spool and I
don't get the kick.  It pulls smooth - without stumble or hesitation, but it
doesn't feel the same.  I just have stock gauges so I don't know boost
figures.  I have not changed the chip set to reflect the change in
manifolds.  Would that account for it?

All thoughts and feedback welcome.  Scheduled for some track time in two
weeks and would like to sort things out before then.

Douglas (RS2'd EM) in MN 
95.5 //S6Avant - mine
98 Mercury Mountaineer - her work sled
98 Toyota RAV4 - for sale
73 BMW R60/5 - lonely in the garage