Another winter has come and gone and no real new progress as the last month, when weather was nice enough to work on cars, I was recovering from knee surgery. Ready to continue on now though. If I haven't mentioned it before, I am a chronic DIYer. OK, I'm cheap! I am building my own exhaust system from straight tubing. I bought 2 1/2" pipe from NAPA and took it to Mieneke Mufflers and had them make some key bends. When I went to pick them up, they explained that the tubing I brought was too thin to get the "U" bends for over the axle without kinking. What they did was sub my pipe for some heavier gauge stuff they had. I took in pieces that were just the right length to make the bend and I planned to tack and weld on the tail pipes once I knew where I wanted them. They used a full stock length (I think 8') pieces X 2 and let me keep the excess length. Cool Beans!!
I using magnum exhaust manifolds and rather than buying the flared head pipe sections and mounting flanges, I decided to make my own. Simply flaring the 2.5" pipe on the ends like a bell proved to be too loose for the ball end of the manifold. I cured this by rolling the flare back sharper to make the mounting surface tighter. Not as much surface area as stock but I don't think they took a 2.5" pipe as stock. Just hoping they are round enough and flanges are rigid enough. Considering welding some truss like gussets on them to help with that. Here a couple shots of the flanges and flares. I will mount on the engine first before I cut to length and determine where the first bend will start.