On the 2.1 when the exhaust is properly mounted you can lift the engine from the tailpipe without damaging anything. Can you do that with your set up? Even the 1.9 was prone to problems with all those tube brackets. 

Dennis
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of Neil N
Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2014 2:57 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Exhaust Bushing Inner Weave Premature Failure

Thanks for your suggestion Dennis. But if an exhaust is "hard mounted"
to a 4 cylinder inline gas engine, is there a greater risk of transmitting more engine vibration to exhaust thus causing a part(s) in exhaust to crack? My observation being that the I4 has more vibration than the WBX.

Originally I used 3 isolators as per the Diesel Vanagon, now I use four; two per each set of DV type driver side brackets. The muffler is
*very* stable. Possibly as stable as per what you suggest?

I've built at least 4 different versions of exhaust. FAS (Foreign Auto
Supply) hangs their exhaust much like a normal passenger car:
downpipe, flex joint(s), remainder hung from body.

A few images of the FAS exhaust from their Beta picasaweb album starting here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/116091365267664548782/BETAUPDATES?authkey=Gv1sRgCIDh0azint7C9QE&feat=directlink#5657441635097028722

IMO, their entire album is worthy viewing: http://tinyurl.com/lu6fz99

This shouldn't be "rocket surgery" but as Don and others have experience, getting the exhaust system set up to last a long time is a challenge.

On 2/8/14, Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@hotmail.com> wrote:

> One thing I would do is get rid of the rubber mounts on the muffler. 
> They didn't work for VW. All the Waterboxer have the muffler firmly 
> attached and moving directly with the engine. One sold assembly.

--
Neil n

Blog: tubaneil.blogspot.ca

'88 Westy http://tinyurl.com/c8rlw6p

'81 VanaJetta 2.0 "Jaco"  http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/

Vanagon VAG *Gas* inline-VR Engine Swap Group:

http://tinyurl.com/d7gd5ej