MR2 Roadster Owners Club

The Workshop => Performance Related => Topic started by: Jgcobra on July 4, 2022, 23:37

Title: Cobra exhaust fitting tips
Post by: Jgcobra on July 4, 2022, 23:37
Hi,

I wanted to pass on some information about the issues that I had whilst fitting the quad exit Cobra exhaust to my MR2 Roadster. I searched on here for answers and couldn't find them, so after figuring it out for myself (very proud of myself :D ) hopefully this info will help someone in my position in future.

First I'd like to say the exhaust is fantastic and I'm really happy with it. Great sound, looks great, and a fantastic upgrade to the stock exhaust. Not obnoxiously loud but makes lovely rumbles and pops when coasting and roars when opening up, especially in combo with my K&N induction kit which blends in a nice dagadagadaga in the 3k-4k rev range. Great customer service too when I had queries.

Fitting it was pretty easy, just grab the rear schematics from the workshop manual and you'll have the old one out and new one hung in a couple of hours. My two points which stumped me for a while were:

1) The nuts that are welded to the flange on the Cobra are the wrong size for the stock Toyota spring bolts.

The nuts that were welded to my exhaust were M10 x 1.5mm. The stock bolts on the original exhaust, and the ones sold by my supplier MR2-BEN, are M10 x 1.25mm. The website said that the exhaust came with all fixings (apart from the gasket), but no bolts were supplied. After ordering new bolts and discovering they were a different size I ended up ordering new M10 x 1.25mm nuts from Amazon and replacing the nuts on the exhaust so that I could use the correct spring bolts.

2) The driver side hanging bracket supplied is not the correct size, causing the exhaust to snag the anti-rollbar on that side.

The exhaust was supplied with a hanging bracket for the drivers side, as the MR2 Roadster doesn't have a hanger on that side on the original exhaust. I couldn't for the life of me see where to fit it. After speaking with Cobra, they advised to attach it between one side of the anti-rollbar bracket and chassis and to bend it if needed. When placed in this position, the driver's side of the exhaust rests on the anti-rollbar, and the bracket needed bending about 3cm plus the bracket on the exhaust needed bending 1-2cm in order to get it to hang level with the passenger side and clear the arb. In addition locating the bracket between the arb bracket and chassis means the arb bush doesn't sit snug to the chassis. There is no noticeable impact to this so I have left it this way, but if it becomes a problem or bothers you I would replace the bracket with one about 10cm longer with 2 drill holes so that it can be fitted entirely between the arb bracket and chassis and attached with both arb bracket bolts.

Hope this helps someone! It was a lot of fun to fit, and a lot easier than I thought it would be after working out my problems with my nuts.

- Graham
Title: Re: Cobra exhaust fitting tips
Post by: Ardent on July 5, 2022, 07:32
The bracket you describe sounds like a variation of the tte bracket and fits in the same place.

Looks like this.
https://www.mr2roc.org/forum/index.php?topic=70253.0