"El Mongrel" '65 Formula S Restomod

Part 4
Several months went by working on the car as much as possible. It was closing in on Christmas and my two initially unsupportive buds had begun to “take pity on the fool” and his “bathtub with wheels” (their name for “El Mongrel” not mine). They pulled two boxes from out behind their desks and handed them to me. Inside of one was a new set of shorty headers (Laysons knockoffs of Spitfires) and in the other was a LD340 intake. They had decided that those restrictive 273 exhaust manifolds would choke the life out of my motor (they were right) so they took preemptive action. Wow what can you say about friends like that.
I immediately headed up to my shop when I got home that evening and started changing out parts. The original cast iron intake manifold weighed 41 lbs on my bathroom scale! I nearly got a hernia trying to lift it off the motor. Replacing it with the LD340 was like permanently removing the battery from the car.
I soon realized the gift of the shorty headers while a god send for flow was going to result in massive headaches trying to route and fab an exhaust system around the steering column and past the torsion bars. This was going to throw the “follow the factory design” concept out the window right at the beginning of the project. One decision I had made earlier to axe the original power steering in favor of a manual box did help in eventually making it all fit (more on that latter). After many hours of laying under the car and with the aid of BAD (beer assisted design) a plan was formulated to deal with the two opposing issues; factory design and getting adequate exhaust flow. (I have a very long term goal to stroke the 318 when it is time for a rebuild). What I eventually came up with was an exhaust patterned off the original two into one and out the back through a muffler/resonator. Aluminized, mandrel bent 3” exhaust tubing, a 2 into1 merge pipe (2.5” inlets 3” outlet), a 3” turbo muffler and a 3” shorty glass pack were ordered up from Jeggs. Over the course of several weeks a system was pieced together starting at the headers and working back. I have got to give myself some credit, it turned out fantastic. I capped the exit through the rear valance cut out with a stainless tip reminiscent of the original resonator. It is made in three sections all of which bolt together with collector flanges. I had the headers and pipes down past the 2 into1 collector ceramic coated and polished. They came out sweeeeet!

Pics of exhaust fab: