Interminable.

I've mentioned that stuff that I want to do, and stuff that I have to do before, but this CBX diversion is another category, that of stuff that I really ought to do even though I don't want, or have, to do it. In this case, I really ought to do it because I really could do with having the space back. Irritatingly, it's still not quite finished. I say irritatingly, because I am absolutely certain that if one more person tell me that it's taking longer than I thought it would (though "wanted it to" is probably more accurate) because "we all slow down as we get older" I am going to tear their abdomen open with my bare hands and strangle them with their own colon. I'd suspect that my inability to perform at the level I used to is more to do with the new improved leg and it's modified neurology, than it has to do with the passing of years, which I find incredibly frustrating.

Anyway, enough about me. I made the exhaust down pipes in pairs, starting with numbers 2 and 5. That miight seem a bit odd, but with the layout I used, 2 and 5 run behind 3 and 4, with the latter pair meeting underneath the former, much like a conventional 4 into 1 system. The remaining two pipes (1 and 6) I routed to run halfway between the levels of the other four pipes. Then I cut half a dozen two and half inch lengths of inch and five eighths tube to start making the collector. To seal the diamond shaped central hole, I used a 20mm long piece of 20mm wide 3mm steel strap, and the triangular holes were filled with weld.

Once the front of the collector was made, it was a fairly simple matter of making a card template for the rest of the collector body, welding that together, and cutting the downpipes to the same length. I got as far as bending up a tail pipe for the systyem and tacking it in place before deciding that I was too tired to start making the exhaust can, and going home. In an ideal world I'll finish that on Tuesday and with a modicum of luck, it'll be gone by the end of the week leaving me with a little more space to work in.

The idea then is to work on the Z250 in that space, and once that's done it can be sold to fund the purchase of the parts for the R65 engine. There are times when it feels like there's more juggling going on in that workshop than there is in the average three ring circus....