Building an R1 Powered Seven: Headers

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.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Headers

I worked on the exhaust some yesteday and again today. First fabricated the ends that bolt up to the engine using 0.75" lengths of 1.75" O.D. x 1.5" I.D. tube, pressed and welded onto short pieces of 1.5" exhaust tubing. I was able to reuse the flanges from the bike exhaust.

Then it was on to the headers. It helped a lot to have the lengths already figured out in Solidworks, so I just need to mark and cut the pieces. I used an exhaust tubing cutter I picked up at Harbor freight. I almost didn't buy it because it was about $50, but it worked great and was worth the cost. It even worked on the curved tube (3" radius), just need to be a little more carefull when starting so it doesn't jump out of the cut line.

Sunday, February 15, 2009
I finished fitting and tacked together the headers.

Next step is to figure out the transition to the R1 muffler.