Exhaust

Thursday night seems like a good night to build an exhaust. So I did. Thank god FedEx got a clue and delivered my mandrel bends on time - without any fuss. (Long story about FedEx and not delivering stuff - for another time.)

The stock exhaust is extremely restrictive and being an off-road, trailered only car, I have no need for items like; catalytic converters, resonators, non-mandrel bent 1.5" tubing. I ordered up some 2.5" mild steel thin wall tubing from Columbia River (http://www.mandrel-bends.com/). I was passed to that site by a friend awhile back - they offer good consistent products for good prices. I also had to run to Napa to get a 10' strait section of pipe which would of been killer on shipping.

So the goal with all my exhausts is mainly to make them as short and as strait as possible to maintain flow and reduce turbulence. The downside is I have to mate it to my aftermarket axle back for those tracks with noise restrictions. I'm going to add a little strait pipe to bypass the muffler for all the rest.

I started with the largest strait section first, putting it on jack stands trying to get it as close to the body as possible. The transmission cross member required me to jog it out a little and then make a hard 90 back into the header. I cut a few 45 degree bends at strategic points and joined them with pie cuts (cuts of a mandrel corner). At the tail section I made a small jog just to locate the main strait section to the rearward flange to mate with the stock axle back. Top it off with an o2 sensor bung and called it a night. (My dog felt the need to try to clean my new exhaust... sigh)