My '05 MGM

[packman]

My experience has been that the manifold to head studs/bolts are no problem to get off. Manifold to downpipe/cat studs are the real pain, but at least can be dealt with on a bench.

Edit: I'm talking about box exhaust, not sure how/if whale exhaust behaves any different.

I didn't have any problems getting the lopo exhaust bolts out. The only other vehicle that was easier was my Malibu; but I suspected that its 305 had been replaced prior to me getting that car.

[packman]

I have the driver side tailpipe mocked up for the most part. I got a bunch of 45° and 90° bends; but I discovered that I need 30° and 60° bends as well. I will order those along with the hose ends. For the driver side, it looks like I need 4 x 90° to go over the rear axle, one 60° bend, one 45° bend, and a 30° bend to pitch it to the rear bumper. We'll see when those parts come in.

[packman]

I received those bends and laid them out. The piping is now very close to the stock tailpipe; just needs to be cut down to fit on a couple of the straight sections. I'm gonna leave it a little long until the time comes to put everything up. Then I will cut and trim as needed; but the basic routing is done. Now I need to do the same to the passenger side.

[packman]

Not much going on here. Over the weekend, whilst clearing out the basement, I found the heat shield I got from the junkyard some years back. Cleaned and painted it. I think when an engine isn't too rusty and greased up, it's treated a little better at the shop; unless I go crazy and start putting on hot pink paint or something.