Building an R1 Powered Seven: Headers & Exhaust

Building an R1 Powered Seven

A few years ago I got it in my head to build a kit car. After months of searching I came across the Locost concept. In short, quite a few amateur hobbiests around the world have built their own Lotus 7 inspired cars from scratch, following plans available on a variety of Internet sites and published in a book by Ron Champion.

I started gathering parts and finally began building the chassis in July '05. In August '10 the car was titled, licensed and is now street legal. The following blog captures the progress of the build and driving experiences after completion.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Headers & Exhaust

Aside from the muffler mount and paint, the exhaust is complete. Oh, and I need to weld on tabs for the collector springs. I may also add a heat shield later.

I started by cutting the R1 exhaust pipe about 1.5" from the muffler, then used a length of 2.25" O.D. exhaust pipe between collector and the muffler. The R1 exhaust is 2.25" I.D. so it was a nice snug fit to the 2.25" pipe. Since the CTE of steel is higher than titanium, it should only get tighter with heat.

On the collector end, I rolled two beads to get a snug fit on the 2" O.D. outlet, then tapped everything together. I bought some exhaust clamps, but as tight as things went together, I'll leave them off for now.

The finished welding up the headers. I tried to get the welds to look nice, but I'm a little out of practice so I gave up and ground and sanded the welds in the end.