2003 Y34 cracked exhaust manifold+ custom headers

[Que-45]

After driving around for a while with an annoying "puffing" sound coming from under the hood, I finally decided to do something about it. After about 3.5 hours of aggravation, I was able to remove the driver's side manifold. The heat shield had to be cut in several pieces to remove it, and I unbolted the ac compressor so I could move the line out of the way for more room. I decided that I was going to repair the cracked manifold, I was weary of this because they are cast iron, and cast is very tricky to weld. I went to my local welding supply store and picked up some nickel alloy welding rods (harris ni-65) 3/32 diameter. I prepped the cracks by beveling a groove channel down the center and cleaning the metal with a wire wheel. I stick welded it last night and it actually turned out pretty good. Must pre-heat and use low amperage. I have pics, I will upload if I get time.

Ok, so I have that back on the car and it is holding, but I want some more power out of my M, so this is what I am proposing to do. I am getting header flanges CNC machined from stainless headers mfg, and I am in contact with JBA to get a set of their "shorty" headers for the titan 5.6 Vk56, but without the flanges welded to them. That way I will get the flanges for the vk45 but the larger pipes for the vk56, and simply tig weld the new flanges to the JBA pipes with little to no machining. I believe the user "ken" on here had JBA headers on his M but he went the other way by machining the oval ports on the JBB's to match the round ports on the VK45, and having to add material to the JBA's which is a pain. I will weld up some 2.5 magnaflow hi-flow cats and lead them into a custom y-pipe with 2nd cat/resonator delete. I will be buying this piece and modifying it to fit my M. http://www.ebay.com/itm/181062673115?ss ... 1423.l2649

I will just need a few 45 degree bends and a few flanges to make that bad boy fit. This setup should yield some nice gains, let me know what you guys think. I promise I will provide pics of all this stuff when I get some time, as well as a write-up.