Meet The Players

This 1949 MG TC is undergoing a nice driver quality restoration. The client started with a strong survivor car and went from there with new paint, some new brightwork and rebuilt running gear. He has a rather large collection of European sports cars (like 80 of them...!) so he was able to pick through his parts pile to come up with most of what he needed. One of the parts he chose to install on this car is a cool aftermarket high performance split exhaust manifold, it's cast in two sections to create a dual exhaust, if desired. With this car he chose to have the split exhaust come together in a collector like a tubular header does.

He brought the car to me to fabricate the exhaust part, here's how it went.

These cars are getting very hard to locate here in the States. Most have been exported back to Europe.

These cars were discovered by American service men during World War 2 and many of them were brought back after the war. This opened the door for many European sports car manufacturers like MGA, Triumph, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and many more.

The tiny 975cc four cylinder has been rebuilt and fully detailed with engine turned covers for the generator and starter.

Here is the rare aftermarket split exhaust manifold.

I started by making two bolt exhaust flanges. Here they are in mid process on the mill.

And here they are finished.

The collector was a simple two into one design. I was using very small tubing, so there were no off the shelf collectors available. I had to make one, I started by beating a 2 1/4 section into an oval and slipping it over the 1 1/4 head pipes.

Drawing on my skills as a blacksmith, I heated the oval section cherry red with a torch and beat it into shape.

Here's the whole thing welded up and ready to install.

Another view, done and done!