After two weeks of waiting, the side pipes finally showed up today. While, strictly speaking, I didn’t need them to start the car, it was definitely something I wanted to have on the car before starting the motor. Without the side pipe, I wouldn’t have the oxygen sensor on the car.
I don’t have the rubber hangers I need to install all the mounting brackets, but I wanted to get them bolted up to the car.
Opening up the box and unwrapping the pipes was nice in the sun — it was a nice afternoon and I had the garage door open. The polished ceramic coating looks great on them. Its got a definite polish and shine, without being a mirror finish. There are a few imperfections in the coating, but I doubt many people will even notice them.
Before mounting them on the car, I needed to get bolts in the headers — the rear bolt wasn’t in either side. Unfortunately I am missing one of the bolts, so I have to dig up one for the rear bolt on the driver’s side. I don’t think it’ll be a problem starting the motor, but I have to find one before I do much, if any, driving.
The passenger pipe had been on the car, at least loosely, before. The rear hangers, which I painted earlier this week, I didn’t use to install the pipes. I need to jack the car up to install those hangers and I need a pair of rubber exhaust hanger bushings, as well. The pipes will hang just fine on their own, but driving that way would be a bad idea.
The drivers side went on, thankfully, easily. I hadn’t bolted it up before and its always hit or miss, from what I’ve read, with the Factory Five pipes and headers. Neither side seems at all wonky — both are parallel to the body, so I think things may be okay. I won’t know for sure until the body is on but they look to fit.
The headers are bolted to the pipes with a gasket and four bolts.
The passenger side has an oxygen sensor, whereas the drivers side does not. Typically a modern car would have four in this configuration — one before and after the catalytic converter on each side, but the car doesn’t have catalytic converters and the ECU uses a more sophisticated wide-band oxygen sensor to control fuel tuning with just a single sensor.
The other part that showed up today was a marine bilge blower for the heat/vent setup. This is a very hefty 4″ blower than pumps out four cubic feet of air a second. It’ll definitely get the heat and cool air moving into the car.
I still need to get some hose to run for it, and I likely will only run it up to the dash and not wire it at this point, but I want the hose and blower mounted before mounting the body.
I still have some miscellaneous details to deal with tomorrow, but I’m pretty confident I’ll be able to start the car Saturday morning — and perhaps take it for a short drive down the driveway.
I have a few more parts coming next week to wrap up the dash installation, and I’ve got a rivnut kit coming which I’ll use along with the stock transmission tunnel cover to fabricate a removable, and better looking, cover for the transmission tunnel.