foci fitment

I always poke fun at Giffin and his pack of Foci, but when everything's said and done, he's out there making it happen, in a car fitting his autox class nonetheless. Due to the recent blogger fail I have been late getting pics up of our weekend escapades, but I guess I shouldn't be complaining, at least I didn't rush to put in blogging effort only to have it migrated to never-never-land. All joking aside, blogger is great and Giffin can b-spec race with the best of them - even while installing a non-ge breaking to a "remote" socket plug for a massive extension cord to weld in his new muffler. I specifically say weld in because it is inline, something I was unaware of before starting this adventure Sunday afternoon, not that that would have swayed my need to play with my welder, drink some good brew, and pals around.

Apparently Giffin jumped the gun and already had the white Foci on stands and disassembled. It's ok, he's enthusiastic and I'm mobile! Either that or I'm just late. After loading up the welder with everything I thought I needed, I get there and of course he's got everything laid out in the driveway ready to go. With a 5o/5o chance, we ended up having to drive to the local ACE to pick up a 5o amp breaker to fit his non-ge box. After rewiring the outlet from the ge breaker I had brought, I installed the new one into an open slot in his junction box and we were ready to weld. Sorry, no pics of the electrical modifications. Certain things I like to get done with a quickness and move on, playing with electricity is one of them, but don't worry, no animals were hurt and the box was put back to normal after I left. Thank you Giffin for the breaker, now I can be mobile and prepared.

The white race Foci is too loud, so Giffin was going from a magnaflow 4" dia to a 6" dia muffler. As usual, it barely fit, but worked seamlessly. The length was another story, but that can be fixed with significantly less pain. After Giffin cut the muffler to length <ahem>, I tacked and welded one end to the fwd section of pipe. If the Foci was normal, actually I think lots of cars have inline mufflers these days, we would be done at this point having only worried about length and only made one weld. The Foci has, however, an inline muffler with bent tubes coming out of each end, so angular position of the welds matters a bit more than not.

We then lifted the fwd section of pipe already welded to the muffler into the car and hung it on the hangers. We lined up the aft section which goes over the rear suspension arms and marked it with a few alignment marks. The length <ahem> at this point looked fine, as did the angular position, so we pulled it down and welded the aft piece on.

"Lets test fit after tacking before welding," says Giffin, voice of reason.

Upon further inspection and an almost final install, it turns out it was a bit long <ahem> and the aft pipe hit the rear suspension arm as it attempted to clear over it. After contemplating a few impossible possibilities, we pulled the exhaust back out and cut out a 1/2" between my weld and Austin's. Yes, as it turns out, Austin, yet another Foci madman, welded on the aforementioned white Foci before I did. Our welds now reside within a mere inch of each other. Go Team.

We were able to pull the exhaust away from the suspension arm and make it as close a fit as the muffler dia was to the car bottom, go figure, and install the tip section as well before the rain came in. I wouldn't have had it any other way. At the end of all this I left with a sense of accomplishment, as well as a few beers, a breaker, an even more dry tank, and a rash on my forehead from my welding mask. Flamboyant welding skull caps under the masks make more sense post welding.

But I mean really, what do you call more than one Focus?