I was at that point until I got everything moved into the shop haha. After wrenching in my driveway for so long, having 4 walls, a roof, and actual room to work does kind of feel like cheating. I even spoiled myself last night and bought some foam mats from Harbor Freight to lay on under the car - I'll be damned if I didn't actually enjoy myself for a change. Spring's coming soon though man, hang in there

Thanks for the kind words Brenton, appreciate it man. There's a lot of builds out there nicer than mine, just trying to do my best. I'm a small fish in a big pond.

Well I was able to make more good progress last night. Got the passenger side collector positioned and started work on the notorious driver's side header primaries.

It's not as close to the bell housing as it looks in this pic, must just be the angle.





Here's the driver's side for reference







Driver's side primaries



From below, snaking around the steering shaft. #7 will also be going on the outside with the other two. Going to be interesting getting that one routed



More soon

 

The driver's side header is almost there, needs some tweaking to optimize clearances but I'll be ready to jig it and build it out in stainless soon. I'd consider what I have to be a pretty rough draft, more of less to prove to myself that 1-7/8" would work and get a general idea for shape. Looks like it will work but 1/8ths of an inch here and there matter - it is tight.

That being said - my hat goes off to anyone who has built their own headers. This is a challenge.

#1 primary looks like this. Clearances are tight between the steering shaft and motor mount plate, and also where the oil cooler lines exit the oil pan down lower.





Got #3 and #5 into the collector as well. Need to simplify the one but for the most part they're where they need to be. # 3 has tight clearances at the frame rail and also at my motor mount. The mounts being as tall as they are with OE style isolators certainly doesn't help. I may cut a relief of into the top of the mount to buy me some clearance there.



From below



Also got a start on #7. Super tight



Believe it or not, there is clearance there...albeit not much. Some light "massaging" of the frame rail might be necessary - really no idea how much engine movement I need to account for.



I have some MTI plug wires coming with the 45 degree boot to hopefully help with wire clearance, changed a fitting on the oil cooler adapter and got some low profile mounting bolts for the motor mount to block connection. The oil cooler lines will also get fire sleeved and tucked in as close to the block as possible.

More soon.

 

WOW- more killer work!
Looks like lots of trial and error. Great patience.
Glad to hear you are working indoors!

I mentioned this on another thread... if yours, forgive the redundant comments. I bought a used 2 post asymmetrical lift from a local lift installer. He's the first one they call when a business that has a lift goes under to remove it. He sells dozens of used ones per year. Mine was $1500 installed and is a 9k lb. european model with some sheet metal guards over the rams. It was the best $1500 I've ever spent on tools. He told me new it was $4k. I've had it for 2 years now and love it. (I wouldn't have spent $4k).

Look forward to your next installment...
Doug

 

Thanks Doug

It's definitely a great exercise in patience. One of those things where it's better to work at it a few hours at a time, becomes tiresome trying to stay at it for long stints.

I'd love a two post lift but it's not in the cards at the moment. I don't have a lot of confidence in the integrity of the floor to support something like that, so I'd be digging out the pad, pouring new concrete, installing the anchors, etc. More trouble than I want to get into at the moment with everything else I have going on. Maybe once the car is closer to being complete....we'll see.

Chuck

 

I've noticed your attention to detail... ahem... and I could envision your bomb proofing a 2 post install.

Most companies spec 4" pad. One option would be just to dig out around the bases and peg in rebar around. I suppose that wouldn't be your style to made it just good enough

Enjoy the build (as we are watching remotely)!

Doug

 

Great workmanship!!!!!

 

Thanks Doug, that's what I would do if I stumbled across a deal....just repour portion of the floor where the posts would mount. Not sure how I would handle the leveling though as the floor is pretty off-camber - over that kind of span I'd probably have a significant shim under the one side which I don't really like.

Thanks Jimbo

The header fab saga continues...

Started this past weekend by basically starting over lol. After looking at things a bit more and talking with some other e36 lsx guys, my ground clearance was going to be pretty poor with where I had the collectors located. So I tore everything out of the car and notched the bell housing flange. I believe this will allow me to tuck the collectors up in a much better position in regards to ground clearance. Brings everything up ~ flush with the oil pan and front subframe.





Modified my collector mounting fixture to put it in the new position



This rendered most of what I had already done useless so I cut the mockup primaries apart and took some time to reroute for better clearances wherever I could. Much happier with how things are looking now and the spark plug wire clearance is greatly improved. Experimented with an alternative routing for #3 that I think will also work much better.



Also picked up this guy to help with tubing fit-up and finishing. It's been a huge help so far. I got a bunch of different belts of varying grit, just takes a couple seconds to change them.



Here's one of the collectors after a couple minutes with the scotch-brite belt. I think I might put this "brushed" finish on the entire exhaust.



More progress to report soon. Thanks for looking

 

that looks sweet! (the brushed finish)

Doug

 

(I think) I finished the driver's side mockup this weekend





frame rail clearance



Tight here, but about the best I could muster and still give enough clearance for the steering shaft. I might bump the frame rail a bit in this location to give me a little more room. Spark plug clearance on #7 is tight but I think I'll be ok with a 45 degree boot and heat sock. Still waiting on the plug wires to show up so I can check clearance... if you order from MTI, don't hold your breath.



Steering shaft clearance



Ground clearance. Glad I decided to notch the bellhousing to move things up



More soon.

 

How is the build coming?

 

Sorry for the lack of updates, been insanely busy lately. Between work, grad school, helping friends with their cars / projects, building a property gate for my aunt, there hasn't been a whole lot of time for the car....but I've still been throwing any remaining time at it I've had.

Since last time, I've decided not to use the single slip collectors based on everything I've read saying that they won't seal.....lack of research on the front end on my part but hindsight is 20/20. With O2's downstream, any air leakage could distort my AFRs and ultimately make getting it to run right problematic. So double slip collectors it is - but instead of buying them I opted to try making them myself.



3d printed fixture I designed in solidworks to hold the madrel bends in my chop saw for cutting











welding / purge setup for the double slips



Was able to get my settings relatively dialed - for those that care, these are fusion welded with 75 amps, 1 pps, 50% on time, 20% background current, with around 20 CFH on the torch and 10 seconds of postflow. Still working to get the penetration consistent, but I'm damn close to full pen



Still in the process of cutting / sanding / welding these things together. I had a tack break loose on me half way through a side seam on the first one I was working on which turned that whole thing into scrap. Fitment honestly wasn't that great on it anyway - I sanded them too far to clean them up and the slips started interfering with each other....which means it wouldn't take much heat cycling (thermal expansion) for these things to crack apart. It's been a pretty brutal learning curve getting to this point......I definitely understand why they're so expensive now given the fabrication effort involved.....but I think I'll be able to get these done soon and continue onward with the rest of the headers.

Aside from that, I've started loosely replicating the cuts for the primaries in stainless and got the positioning set for my O2 bungs in the driver's side collector - 1 for the PCM, 1 for wideband tuning.







More soon and thanks for looking

 

WOW. Impressive to say the least. Top notch skill. Did your JET bench grinder/sander come like that or did you modify one for the belt you wanted to use? Links for what you bought? You mentioned you used a chop saw to cut the tubing, is that what is half shown with the miter table? Is so, I never seen one. lol

I am as interested in your toy tools as your cool build. LOL Keep up the great work !!!

 

So, your content with the routing and going for it? Is your engine and tranny still absolutely centered?

 

Thanks Jimbo, I appreciate it.

The grinder did not come that way, but did come with the bolt on kit to make the belt drive happen. It's one hell of a tool, no regrets picking that up. they offer several different belt lengths and widths - I just got the 2" wide 36" version. It removes material quicker than anything I've used up to this point. with the appropriate belts you can do anything from coarse removal to fine polishing.

http://www.trick-tools.com/Multitool...00_Bundle_4311

the chop saw is a 14" evolution evosaw380 - it uses solid steel blades with carbide inserts. reason I chose this over the abrasive chopsaws is that it generates a lot less mess and the blade doesn't walk - this means straighter cuts and less clean up. It comes with a steel blade but I also picked up a blade to cut stainless - it's breezed through everything I've thrown at it so far.

http://www.trick-tools.com/Evolution...SteelSaw2_2171

Both pretty expensive tools but if you see yourself doing a lot of fabrication they're worth every penny. I intend to make this a lifelong hobby so they were worth the investment to me.

 

Yep and yep. I may tweak the #7 as I build it out but it's close enough to go for it. 1, 3 and 5 fit great with no issues.

 

Fantastic work as always, Chuck. What are you using to flare the tubes to make the double slips?

 

Thanks Robert. I bought the double slips from Burns Stainless.....a hydraulic tubing expander wasn't in the budget lol.

 

I started over on the collector and thought up a means of fixturing the fitup and keeping things from pulling too much during welding. I spaced the bosses to allow for .050" gap between the double slips when cold...hopefully this should provide for minimal interference once things get hot and should help it to resist cracking from heat cycling.











Waiting on a couple things to finish welding this out. Need to get my argon refilled and I have a micro torch kit coming in that should work well for welding the inside of the collector. Hoping to finish this soon so I can get the driver's side header wrapped up.

 

drool!

 

Man, you have the patience of a saint! What did you do with the old collectors? I might be interested in them.