Am I asking the impossible - ls1 exhaust

[apiazza2010]

I have gone to 3 exhaust shops in my town (Melbourne, fl) and all of them said that what I am asking is impossible to do.
I have shown them pictures of an exhaust that was made by another user for this swap but they all claim that there must have been something different.
For anyone else that did the LS swap with Garret's kit and used the sanderson headers, did you have trouble getting a downpipe made?
What size pipe did you guys use? 2 1/2 or 2 1/4 ?
This is the amount of clearance I Have



Sorry for the rant. It's been two weeks I basically finished my swap but I can't get an exhaust.

[eurotrash]

Not sure if itll work with the garret setup but saw the sikky stuff at fd texas and it looked good . It was on a stand so no ref to how well it fit but its all supposed to bolt on. Maybe look into it

[iflytii]

It shouldn't be too hard for a decent muffler shop to do using Garret's mounts and the correct Sanderson header. I only say "correct" because on one of our projects they shipped us the wrong headers. Honest mistake and they fixed it very quickly, but it's something to consider verifying.

[shiboujin]

Not sure if itll work with the garret setup but saw the sikky stuff at fd texas and it looked good . It was on a stand so no ref to how well it fit but its all supposed to bolt on. Maybe look into it

I was the guy that wheeled that damn motor out the trailer!



But yea. I couldn't tell you if these headers would work with those mounts. Likely not honestly.

It looks like you CAN but most exhaust shops don't want to simply due to the complexity and liability.

[blusylver]

I took the Sanderson header and modified it.





I seen how close it was to the steering column so I cut the header apart and pulled it to the outside of the column and then made a bunch of angle cut pieces of of 3" exhaust and tachd them together while on the car. Then pulled it off and tig'd them together. From the pics it doesn't look like there is much of a curve in it, but there is.

[bmk]

That because most exhaust shops are not really skilled fabricators. To be done right it needs to be 2.5 " mandrel bends cut and fitted together.

[bmk]

[Ryan1212]

Here's mine:


Ignore the crappy welds, welded that with minimal gas left plus I ground them and then heat wrapped it. I also had to put a nice dent in the pipe to clear the steering shaft, but it works.

[BUDNUNTA]

haha you guys have it so good.
My car is right hand drive so ive got the starter and the steering shaft to contend with.

[Gertech]

haha you guys have it so good.
My car is right hand drive so ive got the starter and the steering shaft to contend with.

Damn, that's gotta be tight!

[bmk]

Has anyone else been able to actually get the Sanderson headers to seal? I ended up putting a set of felpro gaskets behind them as i could never get them to seal otherwise.

If I had to do it again I would avoid sanderson headers at all costs, they are cheaply made dont fit well and leak. Very disappointed. There are so many better options out there for half the cost.

[garretvs]

I joined the forum today, to ask this question. I guess the search feature actually works.


I am having the same trouble, I had exhaust built before I plumbed the steering rack. I had to loosen the flange between the header and down pipe to hook the rack up, and now I can't get it to tighten all the way down. It is actually resting on the High pressure banjo bolt.

Ive been looking at some different configurations of the Sanderson headers to see if another would work better, but nothing seems to. I've got the Vorlshlag steering shaft too, so I've got a bit more room to work with...

Im thinking about swapping racks to the E36 to gain some more clearance, but Ive got to verify my newly built hoses will work.





Ill try to add some pictures of my pipe tonight it is similar to BMKs pipe just not as well thought out.

Has anyone else been able to actually get the Sanderson headers to seal? I ended up putting a set of felpro gaskets behind them as i could never get them to seal otherwise.

We used the Sanderson headers without any mods. We also used the Sanderson angled collector reducer that was supplied with the headers. On the LH (driver side) we turned the collector toward the LS engine block, and welded pieces of mandrel bent 2-1/4 tubing in. See post #197:

http://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?699289-e30-LS1-Buildup!/page4&highlight=e30-ls1

The pic shows the beginning of both sides of the exhaust. Our LH side clears the standard E30 steering rack banjo fittings by about 3/16" (!). And it is a real challenge getting the 3 bolts & nuts into the flange. We also used a standard GM exhaust gasket at the cylinder heads, and a "high squish" gasket at the collector flange (not a copper one).

If we do another E30 swap, we would use the same exhaust stuff, and the steering rack from an E36. The banjo fittings on the E36 rack are rotated outboard and away from where the headers have to go.

We also would use the flaming river u-joints and steering shaft. We would cut the set screws shown in the pic above down to flush with the jam nuts. They may interfere with the exhaust system if left as is.

[garretvs]

You can buy direct from Flaming River the following steering components:

[bmk]

You can buy direct from Flaming River the following steering components:

He already has the Vorshlag steering shaft, his problem is that he running an e30 steering rack and a poorly designed exhaust system.

[bmk]

And on top of that why run flaming river components when you can make your own telescoping steering shaft from two e46 shafts for under $30.