DIY: Axle-Back Exhaust Removal

you basically put the jack on the back exhaust ?? won't that damage the exhaust/ car? I suppose that is not the jack point?

Razif wrote

you basically put the jack on the back exhaust ?? won't that damage the exhaust/ car? I suppose that is not the jack point?

The jack on exhaust is right at the end just holding the exhaust so you can release the last bolts without the exhaust dropping under its own weight. I also jacked the new exhaust up as well to line it up.

I jacked up on the rear jack points and put my stands just in front of the rear wheels where there is a chasis mount point for the rear arms. Its fairly obvious when you look there, at least it is on the e93.

Years later .........Thanks again. This will be done this weekend.

thanks for this write up, helped a lot!

Great DIY, keeps on getting thumbs up after a few years.

Today I swapped my M Performance for a Meisterschaft GT2. I referred back to this DIY a couple times to make sure I was doing the right thing.

I did run into an issue, I broke one of the bolts for the clamps that connects the cats to the connecting pipe. I had to run to Lowes thankfully found a similar replacement that did the job. If this happens to you it is a M8 bolt all thread 10mm.

What I found to be difficult is lifting the new exhaust in place while trying to slide the pipes into the connecting pipes, all this while you make sure you dont hit your rear bumper. Trying to do that without a hydraulic jack is very difficult.

At the end the result justified any problems. I am very happy with the sound.


Thumbs up to this DIY.

Thanks for the great guide and additional tips by everyone. Probably wouldn't have tried it myself without this.

Thanks for this, I complicated my own life trying to remove my after market exhaust because I removed the connecting pipes rather than lowering the whole system at once. (I figured it would be easier to support the weight of it falling if it was just the muffler).

The one mistake I made that wasn't called out here, make sure to remove the 8mm bolts from the bumper THEN the E10 bolts from the rear bracket, I removed the E10 bolts first and then the weight of the muffler wound up all going into the bumper, it seems like it recovered fine but it lookes a little warped and I can't tell if it was like that before.

Also since I was doing this by myself, trying to get the connecting pipes to stay on the front while properly aligning the muffler on the jack was a little tricky - I stuck a tall bag of kitty litter under the front pipes to keep them from dropping while I moved it around. Once I got the jack aligned it made it easy to push it back on without worrying about it falling.

What a fantastic write up! Thanks shiblanor for your clear DIY instructions and thanks to everyone else who contributed. It gives me the confidence to take a brave pill and give it a go myself without an assistant. I'm about to remove and replace my OEM muffler following the usual mod. I actually bought a spare back box and had this modified so it will be easy to swap back if I don't like it. I bought the Lisle 38350 exhaust hanger removal tool last week before reading this, so it seems I made the right choice!

I would prefer to leave as many hangers on the car as possible and just remove the exhaust using the tool. For the forward-most red hangers near the diff, is it possible to leave the hangers on the car rather than removing the whole bracket?

Also, for the centre hanger at the very rear, is it necessary to remove the whole metal frame? Would it work to squeeze the pins out of the hangers? Not sure how easy it would be to squeeze back on when refitting?

Thanks to this thread and everyone who contributed to it, I just installed my MPE V2 exhaust. Two hours start to finish including setting up quickjack, transferring hangers, torquing everything and putting everything away. Not bad for a first time exhaust install, other than the heat and humidity!

Just wanted to say thank you to the original poster. I just installed the M performance exhaust version 2 on my stock 2008 E90 M3. Install was straight forward and just as described. I'm not super mechanically inclined but was able to do this with some ramps, hand tools, and my big brother. Can't wait to take this on a drive!

Cheers,
Christopher.

Used this today.

2 hours start to finish putting away tools. Could have been a lot easier with a second set of hands but the floor jack was key.

Thank you!

Nice DYI! Pat and I (and George) did mine and we ran into couple of issues specific to E93:

1. Couldn't lift the car using this method. Luckily, Pat had two hydro jacks to lift both sides of the rear and placed jack stands on each sides.
2. Had to remove the under body bracket from muffler section upto x-pipe section (convertibles have this for rigidity of chassis). With front section of the bracket still intact, we were able to slide the pipe portion of axleback and connect to stock x-pipe.

Other than these, everything went pretty seamlessly. Sorry we didn't take any pics to better contribute to this thread...

Got my 2011 E93 last November. Sitting in the garage on the ctek. I'm planning the axle back install this early spring - so thanks to the OP and everyone's comments I'll be doing this myself.

2023 bump for a very useful thread.

No affiliation, but an excellent video showing all necessary steps and tools for an E92:

I'm happy to join you guys; being a newbie in this group, I know I've landed in to correct place. So much information and experienced people are here.