Fit up of Discountconverter cat

["Giller,Bruce C." <bgiller@domain.elided>]

	Over the weekend, I replaced my much abused OEM cat ('86 Spider) with
one from Discountconverter (http://www.discountconverter.com/).  With my
Alfa Ricambi Sport springs, my car sits pretty low and the cat & muffler
hits lots of stuff on the road.  The new cat looked to be pretty well
made and seemed to be a good match with the OEM when placed side by side.

	However it didn't seem to line up with well with my tranny support
bracket or the center muffler (Stebro) flange; the Stebro and OEM cat
aligned easily.  The attachment bracket on the cat is lower than the
tranny support where I could only get one bolt hole to line up.  And I
couldn't bring the center muffler flange & cat flange to close up enough
to prevent it from leaking (get both water and exhaust).  Now part of
this is from the fact that the muffler flange is bent back a bit on the
bottom from hitting the road too often.  I double gasketed (one new, one
old) the flange but it still leaks.  Also there is a leak where the cat
attaches to the exhaust manifold even with all four nuts very tight. 
New exhaust gaskets were used at both locations.

	Has anyone else experienced any of these problems with a cat from
Discount converter?

	My solutions are:

		1. apply some exhaust past at the two flange areas
		2. straighten out the center exhaust flange as best as possible
		3. dump the AR Sport springs and either go with stock or W&D

	'86 Spider
	'73 GTV

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