Received my exhaust downpipe kit to fit the 4AGE 20 valve header pipes from sv3power. It/he is a company that specializes in exhaust components to fit the AW11 first gen MR2. I’m pretty sure it’s a single guy fabricating parts per order. It was the only place I found that had flanges to fit the 20V manifold, of course the 20V one is slightly different than the 16V. I found on his site an unassembled downpip kit that looked like it would work well since the MR2 is set up the same as a FWD Corolla except the motor is in back. The exhaust manifold is the same. So here is the kit. It was a little less assembled than I thought, I guess I thought the pieces that were together would be welded already, but they were only tacked. Looks like my welding skills, or lack of, will get a workout!
And so it did. First off did a little test fit. The collector pipe fits well, except the O2 bung interferes with the engine crossmember. Dang, lucky its only tacked in! Ground it off and fabricated a cover. Where’s Scat the master of tin snips and hammer fabrication? I drill a new hole and break out the welder. I weld up, or attempt to weld up the flange joint. More like glob blobs of metal all over. By the end of this project I’ve figured out that I was trying way too little power & feed.
Oh, and a tip if your going gas MIG, get the argon CO2 gas, its way cleaner and easier to control. I started with straight CO2, there’s quite a difference. CO2 is supposed to give you more pentration, but the argon mix is much nicer to work with.
At the end of two days, last night spent patching the myriad of leaks, here is what I have. I had to use that Danger Will robot arm flexy pipe section I got from Napa because the run to the catalytic converter was not straight in line, and I do not have the ability to bend tubing. I have to wait till tonight to test again for leaks and hopefully it’ll fit!
Oh, later I’ll detail some of the other nice little bits available from the company that I bought.
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