Exhaust Wrap

Having invested in a stainless tubular manifold and K&N filters I didn't want the filters to suck in all the hot air produced by the manifold. So I decided to get some exhaust wrap. Having seen the prices on Demon Tweeks and Agriemach I got on Ebay sharpish and bought some, which arrived a few days later. This was a job I thought was going to be really easy, but actually it was pretty tricky! Firstly the glassfibre strands got everywhere amd made by arms and hands itch for days, secondly the stuff dosent wrap very easily and took hours to get looking neat and thirdly the snap straps were an absolute bitch to put on (bear in mind I was on my own and I only had one hand spare!). Looks pretty good though!

Exhausting Work!

Stupidly, replacing the exhaust was one of those jobs that I thought I could do really easily whilst I was waiting for other parts but it just ended up being at the bottom of a long list of things to do and was a bit of a pain.

Whilst removing the carbs I noticed that the standard exhaust was connected to the manifold by only 2 studs, the other one having been welded in and then broken. Of course I was pretty pissed off but at least it explained those mysterious headaches! After a lot of metal bashing and pulling I got the old one off and put it up for sale on Ebay where it made about £15. The chap came to pick it up on his way to Canley Classics and we talked Spitfires for about half an hour. He showed me some pictures of his beautiful MkIV which looked to be in stunning original condition. Certainly one to look out for in the future!

So that left me needing a new exhaust. James Paddock (www.jamespaddock.co.uk) had a special offer on so I picked up a stainless 4 branch extractor manifold for £105.

When fitting it I noticed that the flange that attaches to the cylinder head wouldn't mount up at the same time as the inlet manifold. I eventually solved this by grinding the excess metal off the flange and mounted it up. Only then did I discover that the pipes that run under the car were touching the bellhousing. A bit of bending later and there was about a millimetres clearence.

I'm looking into the posibility of using a bit of heatwrap on the exhaust and I'm still trying to decide what to do about the rest of the system!