The thing is, I was going to build both my manifolds in mild steel; and the turbo manifold is. The problem is that to get out of the turbo & down quick enough so I don't hit the radiator, I need some tighter bends. Now as a rule of thumb, if you're mandrel bending tube you can do it to about 1.5 D - that is that the centreline of the bend is one and a half times larger than the diameter of the tube. This isn't tight enough for me. Luckily, I know of a place that presses bend half's which you weld together, at 1 D.
So I got tiggy with it.
I also got a length of tube too, (and some stainless MIG wire) so I was all set to build the downpipe.
Boom. The tricky bits were getting through the ARB with 2.5" pipe and setting up the height & angle going down the car for when I build the rest of the system later. Anyway long story short - I cracked it. It's pretty damn close to the sump but I figure there's a lot of air-flow down there so it'll be rate. After finishing it I realised I had used standard ARB mounts, not the ones which move it forward! D'OH! Hey - that only means more clearance. So I need to weld that up at some point but that's the easy bit. I'll put the lamda boss' in later too.
I took that off and looked it the brace for the turbo manifold to the engine mount and made up some bits....
Then I had a brew and a think. I'm concerned about welding a bracket that close the the turbo flange, as all that heat will make it prone to cracking. It's probably the hottest part of the whole system! So I sacked it off. The other reason I'm concerned is heat transfer through the bracket & mount into the rubber bush. Could melt the whole lot. So if you look at the picture above, there's a cheeky gearbox casing hole next to one of the headers. I'm going to brace the manifold to that instead. I'll do the same with one lower down on the casing for the downpipe. Sorted.
That's it folks - engine back out! I stripped the 'bay and it came out this morning. Since then I've been tidying things up in there now all the expensive stuff is out of the way - it's looking good now.
In other news I also (barring a couple of stitches) finished the work on the bonnet by moving the secondary catch off to one side.
It works a beaut
Oh, just a few words on the cooling system. I had a couple of rad pipes made up to some templates I knocked up. The hoses are a bit pike-tech but in the face of paying mege-bucks for bespoke silicone ones, using part butchered OE Polo, Citroen & Peugeot pipes coupled with my steel pipes sorted the issue for about £7.50! It's not gucci but it'll work and thats the main thing. With the turbo off you can see it all a bit easier...
Tidy
The list of jobs before paint is getting smaller. Next biggy - Mk3 bulkhead & pedalbox into Mk1 shell.