Exhaust progress (part 2)

Lots of exhaust progress today. I started out by replacing the Elise exhaust mounting bushes, which had worn through and were letting the exhaust rattle around. Much fiddling later, I then started work on the seven.

I'd been putting off cutting out the hole for the exhaust for a while, mainly because it offered lots of potential for awful mistakes. I started by making a template which would fit around the exhaust primaries:

Exhaust template.

In the process of doing this, I noticed that one of the primaries was actually touching the chassis. It looks like this will have to go back to the exhaust people for adjustment, which is a pain as it will probably delay completing the car. Hitting it with a hammer would probably work but would look pretty shoddy, and it would be a shame to make a mess of the shiny exhaust.

Exhaust primary touching chassis (nearest tube touches the diagonal rail)

Leaving that for now, I got on with nibbling out a hole in the panel:

Starting to make an exhaust shaped hole.

As expected, the panel wasn't as bendy as the template, so considerable enlargement was required before it would fit:

Embiggened hole.

Finally, it fit. The final result is pretty good, though the spacing around the edge is rather variable. This was inevitable really, as the panel needs to slide over the primaries into place. There's more space than I would like on the right, and a few places (top middle, left edge) which probably need filing back 5mm or so.