[lippy]

Good news/bad news. On the passenger side sidepipe, I sanded off some of the ceramic coating on the insides of the collector pipes. With a little Walker AcoustiSeal and the headers loosely bolted to the heads, it went right on. 15m max. Easy job.

On the driver's side (the first one I attempted), it was a bear. I eventually did get the sidepipe on and the tab holes aligned, but it was a mother and I dented/dinged one of the collector tubes on the sidepipe in the process. Bummer, and my first real damage since I've started this project. I think I may just live with it, at least for now, because the alternative is to take the sidepipe off again and get the damage fixed (by a bodyshop?) and get the whole thing recoated. And the sidepipe is on that side so tight that I dont think it will be trivial to remove it, and I don't want to damage the headers. Maybe a few heat cycles will help.

Last point: In order to get the sidepipes parallel to the car in two planes, I had to get some metal exhaust hanger brackets and cut out two sections (one for each side) that attach to the car on one end and to the rubber hangers ERA provided on the other end. Otherwise the rubber hangers alone were just too short - by a few inches. Anyone else do something similar?