^Oddly enough, I can't remember ever cooking anything legit for you when you've visited. Usually we just end up going out, or in the case of your birthday, my girlfriend made dinner. Weird. I suppose there's always Carlisle.

Anyway, I did some work yesterday but didn't post an update so here we go. I turned that bung down in the lathe. Came out pretty good. Resulted in a nice hammer-fit to the hole I drilled. I welded this one from the outside instead of the inside of the pipe like the flange. For some reason, my welder is making a LOT of spatter on this project. I recently(ish) replaced the wire and I'm thinking that's it (or the cold ambient temps). Its flux core, so there's always been SOME spatter, but this is next level. I've been eyeballing upgrading to either a gas MIG and addition TIG, or all-in-one unit like the Vulcan Omni 220. After that I moved on to the other end of the connector pipe.
Sidebar - in my experience, there's never been any exhaust system that works out perfectly and fits everything just right. There needs to be at least 1 section that is custom to make the s*** up front line up with s*** up front, and the s*** in back to line up with the s*** in back. That's why I'm tackling this center section myself. Its a good bit of work, but its worth it. This could also be done by a muffler shop with the ability to make custom bends and such.
Anyway, the other end is where I reduce down to 2.5" for the cat back. The off the shelf flex pipe I bought doesn't leave enough room for other off the shelf reducers + flange. Unfortunately I ended up having to cut the front and back of the reducer, as well as the back end of the flex pipe just to get everything to fit and still have socket/bolt clearance and such. With the small pieces, I'm having to cut them by hand because my sawsall and/or angle grinder can't really get in close enough to the vise to where I need to cut. Its slow going.
So I got the mail order flanges in, which apparently are stamped and warped as s*** (even visually). I put them on a flat surface and they rocked like whoa, so I put them on my belt sander and gave them a quick dusting to see where the high spots were. Normally I'd use the one with the high spot on the inside for better/more immediate gasket sealing, buuuuttt.... This one had a big gash/mark in it that would definitely result in a leak, so I flipped it and just sanded the ever living s*** out of it to maximize the contact area. Crossing my fingers the gasket makes up the rest and it seals.

Couplers came in! I threw the hot side on the turbo and this is what I've got to match up to my existing stuff. I measured it as a 9" pipe, with about a 15 degree bend about 6 inches from one side. Autoparts stores don't typically sell 9 inches of 2" OD pipe, so I shopped around for a local exhaust shop. The majority of my intake piping is actually exhaust tubing. Its super cheap, easy to get made custom locally, and its steel so you can cut/weld however you want. It weighs a bit more but its a small price to pay for freedom. Got in touch with a local shop. Shot the breeze with the owner a bit, and he whipped this up from a piece of scrap he had laying around for free. Score.
Evidently I underestimated the required angle (so much for not measuring twice), so I still had to cut and weld. Seems I can't get away from that activity lately haha. Probably should have been about 30 degrees.
Remember that angled cut I made on the exhaust a while back? Well, I saved the wedge exactly for some bull s*** like this. I threw it on the grinder to get it to fit, and used it as filler material. Its not going to win any beauty contests, but damnit, that works. I need to get some smaller T-bolt clamps so there's not so much thread sticking out the back side... or just cut what I have. If I end up popping the new pipe out of the couplers under boost, I'll probably lay a couple bumps on the pipe with the welder for retention. Its fairly well sandwiched in there at the moment though. This also makes for a good spot to relocate/add a blow off valve. The intake is also finished. Its a 45 degree coupler that goes into my existing 45 degree (ish) intake pipe, to K&N cone filter. The bends put it down below the power steering pump, above the sway bar. I don't hate it.

After I was done up top, I bolted the center pipe in. It went smoothly... which it should considering how much prep went into it. I threaded the new O2 sensor in and sent the wire up through the shifter tunnel. Then... I had to break out a manual and actually read stuff. Scary. New O2 sensor calibration went well and everything started up without issue. Ran rich (correctly) while cold, and leaned out when it warmed up. I let it run while I put the shifter isolator mabobber back in and did some interior work. It was nice to have heat blasting on my feet for that part of the job.
It soon filled the shop with more smoke from burning off fingerprints and rust preventative on all the new parts that is known by the state of California to cause cancer, so I called it a night.
Speaking of heat on your feet... tonight's accomplishments called for more than hot chocolate. A little champagne was in order.

I like the build, kind of makes me want to go bottom mount on my ka-t I'm about to do. I had issues on my old one with keeping it cool with the top mount setup.

I've surprisingly never had overheating issues other than thermostat issues.
Then again, I run a fairly large Mishimoto radiator, NISMO thermostat, and have a huge hole cut in my hood for wastegate actuator clearance with my old setup.

Small update - I hooked up the new wastegate actuator and got the car down off the jack stands, ready for a test drive. Then... we actually got snow. Weather had been bad so I didn't drive it until last night. No leaks, everything works well. I'm letting the ECU learn a bit before I start romping on it. Also, even more smoke was coming off of the header wrap/new parts. It smelled terrible haha.
After this, I just need a refreshed tune and swap my hood back over to a non-ported one.

need moar vids...

True.

Updates?

Unfortunately...
topic628514.html
Still dealing with that f*** mess.

Well that's some BS.

Ok, so I got the new injectors in and did a base tune on it. So far so good! I still haven't really let it loose yet. I need to get it to my tuner to be sure. I did hit about 9 psi at 1/3 throttle though. Feels good to be back
I'll be throwing some pics in both threads here sooner or later.

Woot!