EXHAUSTING

One of my apprehensions during this process of building a car has been about the exhaust.  The kit version wouldn't work with my engine and headers, so it would have to be a custom design.  My expectation was that the car would go to an exhaust shop to have the tubes cut, bent, and welded, 

  but after seeing a number of builders online who did it themselves, I was inspired.  So here is a bit of how that went:

The list of materials was pretty simple.  Two polished stainless steel glass pack mufflers and four 90 degree bend 3" diameter stainless tubes.  Below is the first one on the saw ready to cut.

This will be one of the turn out tips.  Lots of burrs at the cut to be cleaned up.

Next for the front elbow.

At this point the tip and front elbow were assembled into the muffler and held into place with a sophisticated system of spacers and masking tape.

Then there were some wedge shaped pieces to make a bend matching up with the headers.

First wedge taped into place.

Fitting the second wedge.

After it was all fitted and taped into place the tubes need to be welded together.

Now I don't have the right equipment to properly weld stainless steel so all I could do was tack-weld it all together and then take it to a qualified welding shop.  This was my practice piece and it wasn't pretty.

Except for a little hole melted in my shirt it all went pretty well.

Here is the nearly finished (lots of polishing to do now) product.

What I have been most interested in is, how does it sound?

The video sound is WAY OFF from the actual volume.  It's loud.  And the engine is still running rough but I think I like it.

JANUARY 2017 UPDATE

IT'S STARTING TO LOOK LIKE A CAR!

When last we met, I had finished mounting the driver side door and was hoping that the passenger door would go better.

It did.



However, it was then time to mount the door latches.

As I started fitting them, it became clear that changes were called for.  The cables were much too long, requiring some tight bends (in order to fit in the door) which looked like a part that could cause binding problems in the future.  It's already hard enough to get in and out of the car.  The door has to open when you pull the latch.   So I shortened the cables and then had to figure out how to weld/solder new ends on them.  The brass contraption at the end of the cable below is the result.  Not pretty but it should work.































And now they work just like real car doors.































Fitting the rear deck glass to the body was next.  Or actually the body to the glass.  As expected, some adjustments are necessary.  The right front corner just wouldn't fit flush.  So out came the grinder and the body was cut down to fit.  In order to get it right, I had to cut clear through the body so some fiberglass work will be the topic of a future post.



I should have taken a before picture so you could see how necessary this was, but imagine the area below where the hole is cut into the body sticking up about 1/4 inch.


























Getting a bit ahead of myself, I tried my hand at filling the body seams.  I picked a spot over the driver headlight.



1. Grind out the seams.



2. Sand, sand, sand.  I have enough of this red gelcoat dust in the vacuum to fill a quart jar.



3. Fill with fiberglass-filled bondo.  It's a lot stronger than the regular bonds.



4.  Sand, sand, sand.



That's one foot done out of about fifty.

I hope I get better at this before it's done.