I didn't really consider documenting what I've been doing on my car lately because it's such a unique situation and probably not very useful for others but then I opened my big yap about my trying to do something about my exhaust and keep my trunk tray on matmacwac's thread here:
http://www.lotuseuropa.org/LotusForum/index.php?topic=2894.45. Then matmacwac opened up his big yap saying he was curious about what I had done so here it is.
To start with, I had two oil problems on my car. First, if the car set up for more than five or so days, all the oil would drain from my oil tank into the oil pan and I would have to start on no oil pressure. The second problem was that on long trips, my oil would get very hot. There were two reasons for this. first, my exhaust pipe was beneath my oil tank. The second was that I mounted my oil cooler so that it exhausted out the rear of the body. I found out later that all the air flows up through the screens in the engine cover and almost through my oil cooler and out the cool looking
louvers next to my license plate.
Since I was adamant about keeping my trunk tray, I didn't have a lot of options for routing my exhaust. In fact, when Dave Bean was building my engine (BDA for those who didn't know already), he suggested I take a set of headers from a Formula Atlantic, get a rear screen from an S2 and route the exhaust out through the hole like an S2. I didn't want to do that (sanctified trunk tray, remember!) so a couple of years later when ordering some parts from DB, I asked if they had headers for a BDA in a Europa - yes!, routed like the stock TC exhaust? - yes!, in stainless? - yes!, send me a set!
Years later I found out about some cool kits that Richard at Banks Service Station in England had so I got, among other things, front vented disks, rear disks, rear twin link suspension. From one of the attached pictures, you can see the BIG rear cross member. It's a neat piece (too bad I had to cover up the nice chassis punched holes in the top) but something I didn't appreciate was that it limited the width of a muffler if it was placed under it which is the only place I have for a muffler given all my restrictions (header and exhaust routing and trunk tray). I was able to get a very compact steel muffler with 2 1/4" ports that fits there pretty well. It is the smallest muffler with 2 1/4" ports I've seen anywhere. It's pretty loud but it's not terrible around town, it doesn't wake neighboring pets, or rattle windows, but it does add to the fatigue when taking long trips and conversation with a passenger requires raising your voice a bit.
I've included a picture of the area under my carbs showing the snake nest of wires and hoses that was made a big worse because of the Accusump. It required a 'T' to connect the Accusump to the oil hose and add a check valve.
Well, I guess I've rambled enough. Now on to what I've been doing about the problems mentioned above. To solve my oil pressure problem, I finally after thinking of probably a dozen ways to solve this, came up with a one quart Accusump with an electric valve. I already had a switch on my console that was originally to be used in the event I got driving lights, then I hooked it up as an override switch for my fan controller. The obvious place for the Accusump seemed to be on my rear cross member. The valve has to be protected from heat. So I made a heat shield to go between the exhaust and the oil tank and Accusump valve. I made the heat shield from some aluminum from the hardware store and added some insulation from DEI (
http://designengineering.com/floor-tunnel-shield-ii-extreme-heat-shield/). I also put some on the bottom of the oil tank. Originally, I intended to ensure there was an air gap between the different parts. It turned out that the oil tank does contact the heat shield but I don't think that will be significant. If it is, I can move the heat shield lower on that side. I also wrapped the exhaust pipe up to the muffler. I used the titanium heat wrap, again from DEI (
http://designengineering.com/titanium-exhaust-wrap/). I didn't want to wrap the headers because I like the way they look though they need to be polished again. Besides, I was more concerned about the heat going into the oil. My wrap started under the engine so there should be a bit less heat going into the oil in the oil pan.
You might be able to see that I tilted the muffler a bit front to back and side to side. It would fit where it is in the horizontal dimension but this gave a bit better angle for the tail pipe and give more clearance for suspension arms.
I have to plug my chisel and file fabricating job on my exhaust mounts. You can't see the front one because it's under the heat shield but you can see the back one a little. It's from 16 ga stainless steel. I had to cut it out with a dremel tool and cut-off wheel, bend it on my vice and clean it up with files. I had trouble drilling a hole - maybe because I didn't didn't dimple the sheet enough for the carbide drill bits I had but I found out that those Unibit step drills do a great job with making holes in fairly heavy stainless steel sheet. They are shorter than most drill bits so they were handy making holes in my frame where the space was tight.
