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It finally warmed up enough to do some.work.in.the garage again, it was down in the 30s and 20s here in FL so life ground to a frozen halt.
The fact that you say "down in the 30's life grinds to a frozen halt" is wild to me. It was -15 here for a few days. I feel like I can finally get some work done on my new motor because it warmed up to 0.
The fact that you say "down in the 30's life grinds to a frozen halt" is wild to me. It was -15 here for a few days. I feel like I can finally get some work done on my new motor because it warmed up to 0.
That's far too cold, lol. It's back up.into the 50s to 60s here,, thankfully.
Determined that my first plane of using the cats for o2 bungs and installing them immediately after the headers wasn't going to work. The headers end too far back for me to fit the v band clamps, cars, and then turn 45 degrees to hit the center of the car, and turn back straight.
So now I'm coming out straight, will have to weld a bunch in, then I hit my 45s and go right into the x pipe. With a little tinkering, everything fit pretty well.
This is with the x pipe only (everything is kinda hanging there and there's nothing coming out the back.
Then I was like "well let's see what it sounds like with those mufflers too", that'll be about what it sounds like when it's done". Same deal, everything is hanging, no tailpipes, nothing clamped down or anything like that.
It's definitely coming together. I think all the hard parts are done now. I still have to weld in my new O2 bungs, decide if I'm gonna run the cats at all ( I probably will, it's easy enough and my bungs will come with O2 plugs), weld up some.slip joints or use clamps, add my 45s to the eliminators, and tighten everything back up.
I got my cats re positioned in the center stack of the system. Was thinking of welding some.of the slip joints here because there's like 6 of them and that's a small fortune in lap clamps. Layout isn't quite final, I'll probably flip the cats and put v bands at the front of the x pipe. Might do the x pipe connection with the lap clamps, I do want a little bit of misalignment there just in case.
And yeah, those mufflers are not very big, lol. About 11" in length. Gonna be loud lol.
Got more work done today. Welded up my O2 bungs (drilling stainless steel pipes SUUUUUUUCKS BYW). And got my center section figured out. Had a couple slip joints that just don't have enough room for a full length lap clamp, I used plenty of high heat red rtv exhaust gasket maker on those and will use narrow band clamps on them.
I had bought stainless bar stock for the spring hander deals. I spent hours trying to drill into that stuff with like near zero progress. Even with all the cobalt bits and lubricant and all that, just wasn't happening. So I bought some plain steel stock at home depot, will just use that and paint it for rust prevention.
With my cats, x pipe, and 11" mufflers I'm actually really close to where I need to kink out to line up with my muffler eliminators (with the tips all the way back, before I had the sunken in a bit, all the way out looks WAY better)
So, this is the point where I have to admit of a pretty sizeable slip up. My whole system is 2.5" going back, with the collector being a 2.5" collector too. Upon getting to the muffler eliminators, I found out (well, remembered) that the stock system is 2.75" diameter. So that's kinda lame, but maybe it will drone less? I think it will flow as much or more than the stock system with everything being straight through and mandrel bent and now having an x pipe. Anyways, I decided it was gonna be easier to just buy a set of adapters to size it up to meet my muffler eliminators. I really didn't want to have to mess with making new hangers for the tips, or selling my muffler eliminators.
Fired it up and did some audio level tests. It's actually quieter than I expected, gave it a couple revs and it was only in the 90db range in the car on 3000&3500 rpm revs. Sounds straight up nasty though, lol. It has WAY more bark than it has bite now, haha. Subtle it is not. Need to plug a few vacuum lines still, and torque down some stuff, but we are really getting there.
It's WAY loud in the engine compartment. I haven't decided if it's the new normal, or if it's got a major exhaust leak somewhere. It has a bit of a chop sound to it, which makes me think it's an exhaust leak. I haven't gotten a full thermal cycle on it yet, so it could be a little bit of a leak that will go away with some thermal cycles and retightenijgnof bolts
I use the lathe center drills for stainless, even a very small size for starting a hole, sometimes the smaller the better. Drop if cutting oil on the dimple from a center punch, and it goes through it like butter. Some of the nicer step drills work well too (the Harbor Freight ones not so much).
Exhaust leaks can be hard to find and may cause troubles with O2 sensors that seem to baffle the mind (how an exhaust leak 3 feet downstream from a wideband can cause a huge AFR shift.) The further upstream they are, the more they sound like a metallic tick from the exhaust valve open initial blowdown pop.
If all goes well, I might get this basically wrapped up tomorrow. Did a lot of little things over the past few nights, got more parts I needed, all that kind of stuff.
I wanted to make a heat shield for over the cats to protect the body more than anything. Step 1 are these 3/4" stainless steel spacer mount things. Based on the Amazon pictures people use them to mount signs on walls? Gonna tack these bad boys onto the top of the cats and use them to hold the shielding. Also pictured is my x pipe and clamps. In what may be a fateful decision, the x pipe has a clamp on one side, and high temp etc exhaust gasket maker and a couple tack welds on the other end. Will it leak? Maybe. Will I need to come back and put a clamp on it? Also maybe. Am I gonna send it as is? Absolutely. All the areas I welded in it with a high heat ceramic based paint for headers. And yeah, my welds ain't that pretty.
This is what it will roughly look like with the shield attached. This is embossed aluminum heat shielding, it's quite affordable, easy to work with, insanely sharp on the edges, and supposedly what the OEMs use.
Here's my front exhaust hanger. This worked out really conveniently location wise for me so I could put this on the connection between my pipes that go into the center, and the rest of the system. I debated on tack welding the bolt to the mount (the factory piece has the nut welded) but given all my other flexibility for removal I'll probably just nut her up and leave it. Probably a nylock but though.
These are the pipes that connect to the headers and bring the pipes to the center of the car. Also pictured are my o2 sensors and the bungs i welded in, and a lot more high temp paint to hide my poor quality but likely sealed welds.
And since I had some spare quiet time and needed to think about stuff, I also decided to paint the fuel rail covers. I had tried using red crinkle paint on them and it turned out literally terrible, so I scraped them down and hit them with some satin nickel paint I had laying around. Turned out pretty OK I think, kinda dig the look. The valve covers look like crap now, so I'll probably have to pull them and paint them at some point, probably with black crinkle paint, though everything I read about these magnesium valve covers is they absolutely suck to try to paint because they're porous and hold oil. Also hiding in this picture is the bracers and spacers I needed to keep that all working. You can also see the plug socks to try to keep the wires from getting burnt, and you can also make out the new spark plug wire guides I put in. You're probably wondering what's with the shitload of zip ties on the plug socks. I got sick of never knowing what plug wire was which, so I used zipties to label them. They have between 1 and 4 zipties at each end of the sock to notate what cylinder it is. You can also see my not great looking welds for the air tubes on the headers, and the headers themselves are quite visible. Also a couple random vacuum lines I need to plug from the AIR system that I removed.
Watch where you use nyloc nuts. If its hot enough the nylon will melt out. I used serated SS nuts. Had to take exhaust off in fall to take tranny out and all the nuts will still nice and tight.
Watch where you use nyloc nuts. If its hot enough the nylon will melt out. I used serated SS nuts. Had to take exhaust off in fall to take tranny out and all the nuts will still nice and tight.
That's a good point..I might just stick with the split lock washers and maybe a little loctite.
From: SCMR Rat Pack'r Charter Member..Great Bend KS
Originally Posted by Mr. Black
Go to harbor freight and get yourself a 39 dollar angle grinder and some thin cutoff discs. It is one of the better ways to cut off exhaust tubing during fabrication. Sometimes even better than a chop saw.
I like to use 2 inch masking tape to make cut lines with when I can. Especially for V bands as it helps keep the cut square.
Yep, the worst part of flux core is it is MESSY.
Yes, flux-core welding on exhaust piping will be ugly as sin. And if you aren't an experienced welder, the flux-core welds won't be very strong. It will be worth the money/trouble to use gas on your MIG welder (after all, MIG stands for Metallic Inert Gas)
I just built an exhaust system for my '84 K10 and TIG welded... with 304 stainless filler rod... all the joints.
For anyone learning from my (relentless) screw ups, don't weld that support to your pipes. And if you do, certainly don't put v bands right there. And if you absolutely must, for God's sake at least make sure they fit! I did not, and placed the two pipes too close for one v band to slide on, let alone two v bands to sit side by side. So that was dumb.
My support bracket is also quite the PITA to get attached, so my plan now is to cut that off, and not weld them together, just let the pipes rest on the support bar. Possibly a recipe for noise, but it's a race car. Someone better than I would probably just weld it on the car, but I'm not there yet in terms of knowing what I'm doing or ***** to weld on the car with the ECU and all that in still.
I finished my heat shield, it worked pretty good. I had to pieces of it that I bought so I decided to use both and fold them over each other. That extra air gap in between the two layers can only help I think. I also took a piece I had cut off and did it between the body and the header where it's contacting the body. I previously layered dynamat and this possibly effective heat reflective tape on there (I used this stuff to wrap my steering boot on my TBSS and it does seem to work ok - some people go nuts with this stuff and wrap intakes and turbo pipes and such), so another layer of stuff can't hurt. That piece I attached with the included stainless steel zip ties (which do not get nearly as tight as real zip ties for anyone who hasn't used them).
I wanted to get more done today, but lost the first half of the day to working on my TBSS. It has a bad habit of loosening the upper a arm bolts, I had previously thought I fixed it with nylock lock nuts, but apparently not. So this time I used split lock washers, orange loctite, and I'm gonna put nylock lock nuts on it too. Anyway that took a lot longer than it thought it should or would.
On thing I would say for sure about all this, I wish I had invested in a chop saw tubing cutter. They're like $150 and would have made much straighter cuts meaning less time spent flattening them out. I got pretty ok at following a tape line, or holding the grinder stationary and rotating the pipe, but that would have saved me a bunch of time. I'm planning to eventually rework my TBSS exhaust into a true dual (currently it Ys into 1 pipe then splits out after the giant SLP muffler), going to do an x pipe and possibly try to equalize the length of the two banks (on trucks seems like guys just do a loop, I'm debating if I can go halfway acros and loop back next to the existing crossover pipe). Tha TBSS will still have unequal lengths coming out the back because the pipe runs more down the passenger side (single exit from factory), but I think equalizing the two sides before they merge should clean the sound up a little. Or maybe not and it'll be a huge waste, who knows?
On the welds, a trick I used for MIG on thin material was to turn it up a little more than you would for a run on that thickness, and do a 0.5 to 0.7 second pulse. It takes a lot less skill, looks better, and penetrates better. First few are tacks at all corners, and then stop to wire brush clean often. For the V-Band clamps, install the clamp with an opposing V band and it's less likely to warp and leak, and don't let it get too hot, stop and let cool after every 10 seconds or so.
I use TIG now with back purge on stainless, pulsed with high silicone 309 wire for smoother welds, but the above will work better than most muffler shop's quality. Here's my story in case it inspires someone with the same dilema. I sat looking at my project about 2-3 years ago and realized the aluminum and stainless fabrication would eat up many thousands of dollars, so I took a big chance and got an Everlast PowerTIG 255EXT with water cooler, harbor freight cart, and two big bottles of Argon from Craigslist. That's close to $3K but then I also sold the MIG I had and recovered $2K. First project was thick aluminum (0.25" thick and therefore the limitation for 255A machine)... and it took a lot to learn that, and that's why I had the water cooled torch. Lots of practice pieces, and a local welding class. Next I had a lot of thin stainless, mostly exhaust. That was a new learning exercise, doesn't need a lot of power, DC only, you can do a lot with such a machine that’s inexpensive, with less than 100 amps on the dial (30-50 usually) and a 15A 110 outlet... so a cheap TIG setup works, it helps to have advanced wave and pulse features but not required for tubing. Uses a lot more Argon. What really helped was using 2.0 cheater lens on the mask to really magnify the work, so I can see the thin pointy tungsten and tiny metal weld puddle similar to using a magnifying glass, to keep it very close to the puddle. Set up a back purge otherwise the welds will likely crack with the brittle sugaring in the back side as the puddle can't be exposed to oxygen.
Practice:
Show time:
The rig:
Last edited by AZSP33D; Mar 7, 2026 at 03:07 PM.
Reason: Worthless without pictures
We are almost there. I ended up doing my hangers a little different than I thought at first. Basically, I took aluminum bar stock and bent it to fit. My first attempt hung down too low for my taste, then I had the idea to cup the pipes with it, which allowed me to tuck the exhaust up higher and hold it steadier.
At this point all that's left is some more clamps, another pair of 45s, and tips and hangers. I haven't quite figured out how I'm doing that yet, right now my thought process is to weld round hangers onto the piping around the tip and shove those into the flat mount, or maybe convert the factory flat mount to a more conventional round one. Or maybe I'll find a slide in mount that I can weld on and make my life easier, who knows, it's late, and I just started thinking about it. I'll probably cut my extra 180s in half and make turn downs for now anyways.
This is the whole thing in pretty much all its glory. Note my hella wonky hanger visible at the mufflers. Also note my phone is not level, that's why everything looks crooked (probably).
This includes the first set of 45s and is basically current status. I'm planning to tuck the piping in right to the spare tire carrier, though I suppose I could cut a little bit off the 45s and try to go around the carrier. I'll never use it anyways, and might just buy one of those delete brackets, but I haven't yet, so... I dunno. I should look at some pictures of how exhausts not created by a first timer in his garage are routed.
Got one side 95% done. Need to weld on hangers for the tips still. Regular old hangers will slide in where the factor slot hangers go in without issue, having a hook is probably going to be preferable. Worked on the tips a little bit and with the extra 45s in place everything pretty much ended up where I wanted it by pure chance. Ordered 4" and 3.5" tips, I think I like the 3.5s more. They don't fill out the width as well, but the 4" tips look a little... absurd. They're just too big. Arguably, I could move the tips in by like an inch, and I may try to do that, but I'm sort of liking the little bit of poke out they have now.
4" tips (they look better in this picture than in person)
Is it possible to get a shot of the 3.5's from a little farther back? I am about to pull the trigger on parts for my own custom exhaust and was debating on that sized tip.
Sure, will try to get a shot tonight. The car is still.up.in the air, with only one side done, so it might look a little funky
I ended up finding a set of 45* pipes without a slip joint.on one end. That's actually going to work WAY better for me, and I can tuck the tips in a little bit better. Will see how those work when they come in later this week.
