Exhaust part one

 After putting the cat and the back box in place, it was a 'fairly' simple process of chopping up the pipes and tacking them in place. It was a little frustrating at points, mainly because of the bends going in three dimensions, but I got there in the end;

At this point the horizontal pipe hasn't been cut to length, so I have a bit of flexibility of where the cat will live. It ideally needs to be midway between the bodywork and the chassis metalwork. Even so, I think there's going to be a heat problem.

Cats get hot... and they're also meant to be outside the car. This won't get much airflow. I'm going to get it positioned, but then I think it will need some heat shielding on both sides. The exhaust is potentially similar, especially being right next to the passenger hip and the seat itself. 

Tomorrow I should be able to finish the exhaust, which will mean welding up the pieces as well as the three brackets required to hold it up. The cotton reels arrived today and they'll work well. 

Edit: Looks like I was mostly on the right track with the exhaust, apart from what I was looking for. I'd been searching for examples with 'Haynes Roadster exhaust', but actually I should have been looking at the Fisher Fury, SSC Stylus or STM Phoenix. They all have enclosed bodywork with the exhaust inside the sill. Looking at some of those they just have the exhaust 'right there', and in some cases it's even more enclosed than mine is!

Having said that, I don't feel there's any need to make things more uncomfortable than they should be, so I'm going to get some heat resistant mat and line the chassis and the bodywork. There's a fabric that is basically aluminium foil on fibreglass mat which should work quite well, I'll bond it to the metal and to the body inside. 

One other recommendation from locostbuilders (thanks Adithorp!) was to open up the front to let air in, but put woven mesh in there to block potential combustibles getting to the exhaust. Given that our drive is regularly covered in dry leaves I think that would be a good idea. I'll replace that edge of the body panel with some woven mesh.