Hello
Sorry for the late reply, I've been away from the forum for a little while. Thank you very much for the replies.
Albertas, yes, this manifold looks great, but I just can't afford it now (with shipment, it will be up to 250 Euros). I will definitely install a nice and good looking manifold later, but my goal for now is to get the car on the road, and if I am not careful with money, I will have to add my name to the list of those who gave up their build, and I don't want that. So I need a cheap set-up for my exhaust manifold, even though it does not look that good. But I really hope I can afford and install a proper manifold in the future (I bookmarked you link, thanks!)
Enoch and Matthew, thank you for the advice. OK Enoch, I will definitely not buy this «kit-manifold*» if you say you've tried it and it is crap. That is why this forum is great, sharing our experiences avoids each other to make the same mistakes:-) Thank you for that!
I saw the picture of your manifold and downpipe a while ago on your blog, and that would have been my plan from the beginning... if... I was building a RHD car! Unfortunately, my steering column and pedal box are on the left side, which is the DOHC exhaust side, and it is very busy down there!
So I'm trying to sneak the downpipe between the steering column and the master cylinder, but all the solutions I thought about so far just failed. I shorten the Y part of the original down pipe to be able to fit a 90° bend towards the outside. But considering the curve radius of aftermarker exhaust elbows, even if I cut this bit just above the lambda sensor, the bend will be too close to the master cylinder anyway (especially the front inlet-I'll have remote brake fluid reservoir).
But I found this kind of steel elbows. I don't have it yet, need to order on internet.
Diameter is 60mm with 3mm walls, it will fit perfectly on the Y downpipe I modified. I'll cut ite just above where the lambda sensor is now (the lambda sensor will be re-located on the cat anyway) to get the 60mm diam.
This elbow has a very shot curve radius (about 60mm I think), so it should be perfect to go under the steering column, and quite far away from the brake M/C outlets. I might add a stamped aluminium heat shield between the elbow and the M/C anyway.
Then, on this elbow, I'll weld a 55mm straight tube which will cross the side panel.
This could be the cheap (£6 for the elbow) and easy solution , we'll see!