Exhaust Routing & replacement systems.

[stevew]

The exhaust on my car is pretty crap being too low trying to go under the gear stick selector unit. The exhaust has many scars from contact with the road, and on the few drives I've had so far knocks against the gear stick unit. Does anyone have any handy photos of the correct routing in this area that I could compare with please? To ease things a bit I've been considering raising the gear selector housing higher into the transmission tunnel. How close does the exhaust come to the GRP transmission tunnel when correctly routed as I'm concerned about heat dammage tot he chassis. Also does anyone have any recommended suppliers for sourcing parts to make an exhaust system please.
Cheers,
Steve

[Hans Efde]

I know only Maniflow who do a superb exhaust. When I had the turbo engine my exhaust looked like this:













A near perfect fit with the exhaust hardly sticking out under the bottom. That changed when I sold the turbo bits and bought a new LCB from SS components. Dead cheap at around 120 pounds, but it turns out a Mini LCB is too long. On the Metro the LCB is an inch shorter.









The flexjoint made things worse. It didn't have the rigidity of the knuckle joint so the exhaust drooped and I had to install an extra mounting point midways. BTW the Metro has a mounting point midways as well.





So to sum it up, it's easy to get the exhaust running in the tunnel, just make sure you have a Metro LCB and possibly make an extra mounting point in the middle. The exhaust might need to be squeezed at bit to get it past the gear selector. That said since I have my extra mounting point with the exhaust just below the bottom, with the suspension at the correct height I don't have a problem anymore.

[Stuart]

As Hans has shown original squeezes between the tunnel wall and gear-selector housing, which is good for ground clearance, there is a section of the tube that passes directly past the gear-selector housing with a flat section squeezed into the tube, however it is still a very tight fit, and has a habit of doing this to the central tunnel

[wolfie]

My local council love speed humps so I shifted my exhaust round a bit to fit as tightly as possible and it burnt the gelcoat so I'm going to move the remote inside the car. Theory is that without the remote in the way I can run a straight pipe with no chance of it touching the car or the humps

[DavidL]

My local council love speed humps so I shifted my exhaust round a bit to fit as tightly as possible and it burnt the gelcoat so I'm going to move the remote inside the car. Theory is that without the remote in the way I can run a straight pipe with no chance of it touching the car or the humps

I'd had similar thoughts, but no real need to put them into practice (practise?).
Another thought was to try to implement a cable change, but that's staying purely inside my head for the time being. I don't see why it wouldn't be doable, though.

[stevew]

What a quick and fantastic responce, many thanks to all. The photos certainly give plenty of food for thought. Has anyone tried raising the selector unit? Having a look at it again and wonder about maybe enlarging the hole in the tunnel bending the rods suitably. Any thoughts or things to watch out for?
From the photos I think I might have a Mini LCB manifild too.

[b1zbaz]

Mine ran between the remote and passenger side and I never had problems with it burning the fiberglass

[Alan D.]

Hello all,

Should we not think about using more modern materials!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjFzTJOuDQE

Just food for thought!

Alan

[Stuart]

One could replicate the engine bay of a certain composite car with that gold tape.

[wolfie]

What a quick and fantastic responce, many thanks to all. The photos certainly give plenty of food for thought. Has anyone tried raising the selector unit? Having a look at it again and wonder about maybe enlarging the hole in the tunnel bending the rods suitably. Any thoughts or things to watch out for?
From the photos I think I might have a Mini LCB manifild too.

to raise the selector you will need 2 uj's Steve. Think that's the route I will take as I need a 2" exhaust system and I'll make it adjustable just in case I cock up the measurements