A 'gentle' rebuild of my 3500

For those that haven't read the thead about my blowing exhaust I basically had a knackered joint between the centre pipe and the intermediate silencer. I tried to tighten the bolt but it was found that one of the collars had split, th long and short of it was that it needed replacing :(

DSC07285 by mikeyp78, on Flickr

I had three choices, try and have the joint cut out and a length of pipe welded in place or fit new sections of pipe in either stainless or mild steel. Upon further digging it turns out that my sump is from an SD1 so therefore has a recess at the front and not the back to allow the passenger downpipe to pass underneath so an off the shelf exhaust wouldn't have worked! When I took a proper look at the original exhaust it is clear that this section has been re-routed and consisted of lots of small pipe sections welded together.
I was left the only option to have an exhaust fabricated, and after a bit of searching and reading some reviews I opted for my local Longlife Exhaust specialist near Knebworth (for anyone local I can't recommend them highly enough), it turns out that the cost was less than an 'off the shelf' system that I would have to fit myself anyway.
The great thing about having the system built to spec was the option of tailpipe and I could have the sound tailored to what I wanted, also the silencers are straight through but maintaining the same diameter pipe thereby allowing the gases to escape better; I will come back to this point later. The sound I went for, which was achieved, was a low burble on tickover and an obvious rumble when accelerating but it disapears when on the move so no boomy exhaust when cruising on the motorway :D

A few before shots

IMG_0334 by mikeyp78, on Flickr

IMG_0332 by mikeyp78, on Flickr

DSC07410 by mikeyp78, on Flickr

IMG_0330 by mikeyp78, on Flickr

And the finished article :D

IMG_0320 by mikeyp78, on Flickr

IMG_0322 by mikeyp78, on Flickr

IMG_0321 by mikeyp78, on Flickr

IMG_0324 by mikeyp78, on Flickr

IMG_0325 by mikeyp78, on Flickr

IMG_0326 by mikeyp78, on Flickr

IMG_0328 by mikeyp78, on Flickr

The standard of workmanship is brilliant and it does sound great :D

The next thing to sort out is the tuning. The car was never quite right before, obviously due to a blowing exhaust but now it has a better system on it I think the engine needs re-tuning as I have a flat spot and a bit of bgging down under load. I found a thread on here and Herts2000 recomends a garage thats local to me who are SU specialists and do rolling road tuning so its booked in for next month for a proper tune up; this garage did say that a free flowing exhaust would give me these problem so maybe new needles and tune up would help. We shall see.
 
Nice birthday present Mike :D I can almost hear it , bet is sounds great , looks good too :D
Stina
 
herts2000 said:
very nice mike 8) are you booked in with peter?
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I am Dave based on your recommendation to Adam in his post about about engine rebuilders. I'm hoping he can release some power. He can't fit me in till the 9th of October though.
 
Mikep said:
herts2000 said:
very nice mike 8) are you booked in with peter?
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I am Dave based on your recommendation to Adam in his post about about engine rebuilders. I'm hoping he can release some power. He can't fit me in till the 9th of October though.
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It will be worth the wait mike :D
 
herts2000 said:
Mikep said:
herts2000 said:
very nice mike 8) are you booked in with peter?
Click to expand...

I am Dave based on your recommendation to Adam in his post about about engine rebuilders. I'm hoping he can release some power. He can't fit me in till the 9th of October though.
Click to expand...
It will be worth the wait mike :D
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I hope so, hearing that he managed to liberate 18 bhp that had been 'lost' from your old metro sounds good, any increase as close to standard would be great as I'm sure the car is down on power anyway. Talking to a few of the guys at Petworth and reading some threads I amazed at how changing the needles makes such a big difference especially as standard ones aren't great with modern fuels
 
That looks a sweat job Mike, well worth the money and now you can forget about it and listen to that sweat sound......aaahhh bliss
 
I bet your new SS system sounds great Mike. Looks good too 8) The SD1 sump is a strange option though. The only reason I can think someone would fit one would be to keep the oil stable when cornering with its baffles inside?
 
LeeEFi said:
I bet your new SS system sounds great Mike. Looks good too 8) The SD1 sump is a strange option though. The only reason I can think someone would fit one would be to keep the oil stable when cornering with its baffles inside?
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Thanks lee, its a massive improvement on the original one. The car has an SD1 bottom end and and at least an SD1 bell housing maybe the whole gearbox as the sump is bolted to it, I know fitting an SD1 bottom end lowers the compression so maybe they fitted the gearbox as well and needed to fit the sump. The thing is they ad to re-route the exhaust so it caused a bit if work. I wonder if a number on the gearbox will tell me what type of car it's off?
 
Looks and sounds great Mike. It'll sound even better in 6 months too once it's been run a while.

Dave
 
Thanks Dave, it does hav a nice rasp when you accelerate but doesn't drone, best of both worlds I think :D
 
herts2000 said:
that sounds alot better than the day of petworth :D nice
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I know, I can't believe I didn't realise it was blowing before the MOT tester told me :shock:
 
Mikep said:
Thanks lee, its a massive improvement on the original one. The car has an SD1 bottom end and and at least an SD1 bell housing maybe the whole gearbox as the sump is bolted to it, I know fitting an SD1 bottom end lowers the compression so maybe they fitted the gearbox as well and needed to fit the sump. The thing is they ad to re-route the exhaust so it caused a bit if work. I wonder if a number on the gearbox will tell me what type of car it's off?
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Ah, that would explain the need for an SD1 sump. It sort of reminds me of the route that TVR take with their forward facing exhaust manifolds. I'm sure you can get the engine and gearbox numbers from both if needed.

BTW, it does sound very brutish, but also very refined too. I bet it sounds good while on the move 8)
 
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