Hilux 4x4 Forum

Good day.
I am contacting you from, Namibia.

I want to look into replacing the complete exhaust system on my vehicle.

Now that we have that out of the way I will give you the vehicle specifications and my reasoning behind this;
I am currently driving a 2012 Toyota Hilux 4.0 V6 A/T D/C 4x4.
The previous owner "cowboy-ed" the rear cats out from the system, but left the front two intact. Guess it was too much effort for them to remove the headers etc. I am not too interested in performance gains, but better performance would not hurt.
I do however not want worse fuel consumption - Very important. Better fuel consumption would be great.
I am not at all interested in other modds like piggyback systems, chips, remapping, etc. (Unless remapping is required for the sensors, etc.?)

The main reason for this modd would be, I would like a little better grunt from the exhaust!!!
Enough to make big- and small-boys turn their heads when driving by, but quiet enough to not scare all the game away on a game drive. (But honestly the focus should be more on the grunt for us 'boys'.)

I most definitely do not need a stainless steel system.
I very seldom go to the coast or wade through deep water. So from a rust perspective, a plain old mild steel in my opinion would suffice.

As with anything vehicle related, each person has his own idea and opinion. I am lost at what to do. Do I now just leave the system as it is or what-what-what?

Hi there,

As soon as you remove all cats you will need to add CAT - Foolers to keep the ECU happy, or you need to add a chip to fool the ECU, or re-map the ECU...
Else your ECU will light up your check engine light and put you into limp mode.

Any decent exhaust shop should be able to assist you.

Hi George,

being a fellow Windhoek resident, I can give you one advice and that is not to involve Powerflow here in Windhoek, they messed up my steering column when I had Branches and Freeflow exhaust fitted to my 2.7 Hilux. Whatever they tried to install was not meant to be installed on the 2.7 and they started blaming engine mountings etc, etc and went as far as putting a big dent into the branches to get them out of the way of the steering column. To top it all off they failed to tighten the nuts on the branch header and I ended up limping into Otavi. Fortunately the mechanic in Otavi was able to fasten it with a hell of an extension and knuckle joint on his ratchet.

That being said, I think Nick's Racing is a safe address when it comes to any sort of conversion, but I have not dealt with them personally. As Jurgen above mentioned, the recommended route would be to remove the CATs and have the sensors replaced to fool your ECU. After my misfortune with Powerflow I took my Hilux to Speedy Exhaust (by Snyman Circle) and they replaced the performance branches with the standard branches and carried out some modifications to the end piece. But I am not sure if they will be able to assist with the CAT sensors etc.

I am no expert, but I would imagine that changes to the exhaust system alone will probably not affect your fuel consumption or power drastically, unless it is a "learning" ECU which will then compensate for the changes in exhaust discharge.

Have a look at these topics:
viewtopic.php?f=94&t=33293&p=466047&hil ... at#p466047

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=37158&p=442648&hili ... at#p442648