[mhsprecher]

It's my view that the original arrangement works well when you have the proper flange on the pipe where it meets the exhaust manifold. Sometimes the manifolds droop toward the end due to the heat of the exhaust, which can also cause misalignment at the joint.

When I first bought my Town Sedan, I had real problems with that connection. My manifold was cracked toward the end and the pipe came disconnected often. I first replaced the exhaust manifold with an uncracked one, but the problem persisted. I tried everything.

At the MARC National Meet in Niagara Falls, I looked at an Aires muffler and noticed how wide the flange was and realized that was my problem, so I took my old muffler to a muffler shop where they made the flange bigger. That took care of that problem and the pipe never disconnected again. I later replaced the exhaust manifold due to the droop, which cause leakage at #4 exhaust port, as well. Not a single problem since I had the flange reworked,