The Little Things
Having worked on hundreds of cars over the past 5 years or so a few things have become abundantly clear: no two jobs are ever the same, even if the parts being installed are, instructions from the component manufacturer-- if they exist at all-- are almost never complete, and finally, exhausts never ever fit without a good amount of "tweaking". A quick example of tweaking is presented after the jump...
The problem: connecting a single pipe race exhaust system on an E36 M3 with a Euro engine, stock headers. It was claimed that the header merge pipe we bought-- basically two pipes (that connect to the header) that merge into one (which connects to the rest of the exhaust system) -- was the solution.
Well... after cutting off the original flanges (bolt holes didn't line up), extending the two pipes that attach to the smaller diameter OEM header pipes by 1.5 inches and 3.0 inches, flaring and welding it all together, it did work.
The tweaked merge pipe:
To clean it up, we applied high temperature exhaust paint to the extended portion.
