Hey ya'll,

So I was driving my 8 to see my girl and forgot the college has these new speedbumps like ubber tall... ontop of that they also have placed manholes which add another couple inches to the ability to clear them... dumbest idea ever I know. Well was driving over one at the wrong angle apparently, was going at a crawl like normal but when I heard my front wheels clear apparently the suspension dropped just enough for the manhole to catch my rear exhaust tunnel bracket.

It bent it back in the middle almost to a 90degree angle and my question is... from the pdf mech files I have on the 8 those exhaust tunnel brackets look to only be held in by 4 (2 on each side) grade 8/gold style bolts? I ask because I ordered one from Mazda for like 30bucks... but of course they want like 130 to install it. My parents have a drive up lift... so is it was simple as just taking those 4 bolts off, replacing the part, and rebolting? If so even with having to bend the part back out some to get to a couple of the bolts, would save me some money and seems to be easy. Never worked on the 8 underneath, so just doublechecking... also do ya'll know the tq. spec for retightening.. don't have that in my pdf files?

Thanks!

 

yes, four 12mm hex bolts

you only need to remove two bolts fully, one side of the bracket has two open ended slots

don't have the torque spec

 

Thanks for letting me know about the bolt layouts. Just picked up the part from the dealer and saw what you were talking about... easy enough. I figure I'll just make them snug and tq. them to 18-20 if needed, unless someone knows that exact spec. Thanks again!