More Exhausting

Another couple of productive hours in the garage.
The problem was that because the new header is much bigger than the old one, the exhaust system as a whole was now much much too long. When I set it up for the X-flow, it was as shourt as I could make it, so I thought I had a big problem - but NOW I can weld! (ish).

But I’ll sort out the side pod before final welding & cutting. Speaking of which, I took the small heat shield / trim off the upper face of the pod & opened the hole up to suit the new header. The new hole is MUCH bigger as it now goes round four pipes instead of one, as the adjacent photo of the old trim next to the new hole shows. But it looks as if it'll go back together OK, which is just as well as my wife want's the pods out of the conservatory.

Selfish I call it.


I cut down the outlet at the back of the silencer, then progressively cut down the two 30 deg bends, until they fitted nicely round the side impact protection, with the Zetec they pass on the outside, whereas with the X-flow, they passed through the frame. Cutting them so short means the swaged area where one tube fits into the next has been removed, so I’ve cut one of the swages into rings & will weld the pipe sections together instead of clamping them. It’s a lot lighter that way, as there's a lot less overlapping pipe & no clamps.Another by-product of routeing the exhaust this way is that the exhaust tip is now so far from the side of the car that I could take out whole bus queues with it, so I’ll have to cut it down to a more suitable size.