the past few times iv been under my car and had the Y pipe dropped for what ever reason i would see this black ring on the ball part of the header and said "thats a bit restrictive", how much i dunno but every lil ounce counts.

sooooooooooo i mark where the flaired part mounts to the header, break out the mini grinder with a cutting wheel and start cutting off the excess. so after i get everything from the origanally intended project buttoned up i finish bolting up the Y pipe, hit the key and "we have exhaust leak"!!!

i go down and see whats going on, proceeded to tighten the mount a bit more and still have a leak. i get ready to yank the header and thought "wait a min, lets get a good look before we rip this dude down". so i grab my mirror and look at where i felt the air. sure nuff, i didnt over cut like i thought i did, the flange isnt seating on the ball properly. so i make an adj and fire it up again, MUUUUCH better. i think i still need to tap the flange a bit to make i seat better but that wont be much to make that happen.

so if ya get that itch to remove a lil excess, only remove the black coated area and do it off the car. amazingly my cuts were pretty decent for on car work, oh yea, yes i removed the o2 before i did this.