No luck so far, most places just say it's not something they can fabricate. I've got two left to talk to... Beyond that, I will have to start asking around interstate maybe, and deal with shipping. What a bunch of nonsense!
Over the weekend I got to work and removed my old 90's Wildcat extractors as they were leaking baaaadly, undriveably so. Turns out, the extractors themselves actually seem ok (although lots of surface rust, solid), it was the collector downpipe that was ROOTED. I had a real laugh when I took it off, I had patched two large holes by kneading exhaust cement paste into stainless steel wool, smooshing it into the holes, pressing it into place with a small piece of curved aluminium plate, and then securing it with metal cable ties (a really quick and easy fix actually, and it worked just fine). But I had no idea just how many holes that thing had... top, bottom, sides, everywhere, made me chuckle.
As I'm generally on a tight budget, I replaced it with a Tiger Headers extractor and downpipe - $360 delivered via eBay (see here :
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/174732577393 ) - and my overall review of this is : Really... not that bad. The actual extractors are surprisingly good quality, welds are nice, they're as thick and sturdy as the Wildcats, and I personally think the actual pipe layout and flow design is at LEAST as good as the Wildcats. They fit pretty much perfectly as far as physical size and shape goes, and mounted up to my stock piping just fine. But I had read about people having to grind or modify them to fit right, and sure enough, mine needed a bit of effort. The two little alignment holes for the nubs you slot in when installing it were forced off by about 2mm each once the extractors were bolted on, so I had to take a big drill bit and widen both nub holes on my intake manifold enough to seat over them - no big deal really. But then I found I could get all the manifold bolts in except one, the middle right out of the lower four. The extractors are just the faintest bit wonky enough so that they obscure that particular bolt hole JUST enough that you really cannot get the bolt into its hole to even try and thread it, so after 45 minutes of busting my knuckles and cursing all the phrases I know, I just gave up and left that bolt out. Mercifully, it's a center bolt, so the overall clamp force of the other 3 bolts actually still make it all seal up just fine. But my OCD was triggered. If I ever take them off again, then these issues can be fixed with about 5 minutes on an angle grinder, so I'm not too annoyed overall.
I painted them with VHT high temp exhaust paint, and after the initial cook off period, they've been great. Annoyingly, the stock exhaust is NOT 2.25" like I had read 10 times over, but rather 2.0", with just a couple of 2.25" flanges in the mix. Frustratingly, the extractor downpipe flange is 2.5", but has to adapt to the exhaust at the first hanger which is just a straight 2.0" pipe with NO FLANGE... for SOME reason, it's the one single un flanged point, it's stupid. So the 2.5" to 2.25" reducer I got was useless. I had to cut out a scrap piece of 2.25" pipe ring from my busted old collector just to sleeve into it to get me by until I can get a proper matched reducer, so it still leaks maybe 20% right under the drivers seat. But honestly, it sounds great lol, it's got a nice burble to it.
For you guys who have changed mufflers, what have you gone with? I don't want a lot of noise, just something a little nicer than stock... I still have to live with it every day. I'm booked in to have the remainder of the exhaust replaced on the 26th, and they'll likely have some options to choose from, but I figure it can't hurt to ask. Annoyingly, EVERY SINGLE VIDEO on youtube of muffler swaps on these are disgusting hollow sounding flowmasters and hot dog mufflers, which sounds like a bus with the exhaust cut off. Just nasty, ear bleeding trash. I can't find anyone who's put a sensible middle-of-the-road multi chambered (but more open than stock) muffler on an XJ and recorded a video of it. It's crazy.
Yikes that was quite a rant, my bad. I'd post photos but... well, it's extractors. You've seen them a thousand times lol. I figure in all my ramblings here if someone else is about to do this work or wants to, maybe you can take something from it. Like the exhaust reducer size, or the drilling / grinding needed for the cheapo extractors. Information is information, always good to have!!
1995 Jeep Cherokee XJ
1995 BMW 730 iL
If anyone knows of a company that could make it on the cheap, hey let me know? I can send you the CAD files, I even edited them to remove all the silly 'MG42' and 'Cherokee' text and such out of them... I prefer a clean look. I'm on the Sunshine Coast, but I'd gladly pay some postage to have it all sent to me from somewhere else if they can do me a good deal.
