A Little Accent

11 Jul A Little Accent

It might be little, but soon, it’ll be packing a larger punch than before. This is Dan’s Hyundai Accent.

We really don’t get a lot of Korean cars through the shop. With the exception of the random Genesis (and our own), they are probably the market least represented in both our service and performance departments. Well, now we have one more to add to the list. Dan’s accent has been in for various services before, but today, we’re putting him on the blog as he embarks on the next big step for his vehicle. Oh, and don’t mind that blur in the corner — we don’t want to give away our progress on the bike, seeing as how the posts are a bit behind the actual progress.

To say his car is low is an understatement. This car kisses the ground so much that they should be signing up for a Crate and Barrel registry. Here’s a shot of the tire as it sits when the car is all the way up on the lift. This is the lowest point of travel on its current setup, and it’s still tucking tire! Because we’re thinkers, we didn’t grab any pictures of it sitting before it hit the lift, but we will as soon as it’s done. Needless to say, that StanceWorks sticker on the rear window is well deserved.

Remember that Nardi wheel we had on the blog a little while ago? Well, he’s the recipient.

So, you might find yourself asking what he’s here for this time. The answer is simple — a complete redo of his exhaust. Here’s the stock one still in its proper place.

That complete redo means he’ll be changing everything from the exhaust manifold gasket all the way to the tip. He’s chosen a 4-into-1 aftermarket header design, to which we will be mating a 2.5″ single-pipe custom exhaust. It will delete the catalytic converter in the process (because Dan, like all good driving enthusiasts, only uses his catless vehicle in a manner consistent with federal, state and municipal laws), so it’ll get an additional power boost to supplement the extra growl.

The first step, as it is with any exhaust system, is to drop the OEM setup out of the car. So, after some rusty bolt removing, we did just that.

Then we moved onto the headers. Sometimes a transverse-mounted motor is a nice thing to see, as it’s typically significantly easier to remove exhaust manifolds with this layout. 6 hours of book time for a 63 AMG header removal, versus less than an hour for the Accent? Yeah, it’s a nice break from the norm. The look of the header’s patina can really only be compared to one thing — the skin of the characters in the old “Dinosaurs” television show.

With a quick dipstick removal to facilitate the process, the headers came out without too much muss and fuss. Again, this is not typical in a German car, where header removal is usually accompanied by blood stains, egregious amounts of swearing and the occasional accidental death.

The new headers, being catless, didn’t have that same massive bulge in the middle of the pipes, so the new one slipped into place without much effort.

We’ll pick back up on that soon, once the exhaust begins to take shape off the header. In the interim, let’s take a look at how Tom’s Z32 single-turbo build is progressing. He’s recently tacked together the majority of the turbo, wastegate and dump tube piping, and this is the result. It…uh….well…um…it looks like this.

Once again, a quick weld porn closeup of the extreme bend that Tom put together from eyeballed pie slices of stainless steel.

This kid’s crazy, but then again, that’s why he works here. That’s why we all work here. Can’t wait to see how this takes shape as he focuses on it in his off time.