Oct 12, 2014: Built Exhaust and Drove my Baby Home!Today was a good day.
Got everything up top done and fired up the engine with the open header and after getting the timing dialed in MAN she sounds GREAT! Nice and smooth idle, snappy throttle response, ohhh man oh man how much I've missed being without this car these past two months!
With the engine running, it was time to build the exhaust. I was originally only going to trace it out and then have our fabricator finish it, but it came out so nice on my own I just decided to do the welding and get it all done!!

I'm not the best welder by any stretch of the imagination but enjoy the pride & reward that comes from doing it yourself so here we go:
I ordered these parts from the same place I got my intake pipes from,
http://siliconeintakes.com. Stainless steel standard wall thickness 2.5" exhaust from the TRD header back. The TRD Header only has a 2.125" ID and I'm jumping up to a 2.5" ID, so my original plan was to run 2.25" pipe through a gutted cat and then into a 2.5" U-bend. But after messing around with the gutted cat for a while it just wasn't worth the effort and I decided to go 2.5" straight-away. Why such large pipe and opened up exhaust ports? Keep reading...
As for the gutted cat... Why this? Well, I am SICK AND TIRED of having to replace Cats every 4 years just to pass smog. SCREW THEM. They keep making it harder and harder to smog these older cars WHEN will they just give us a break for once. The last time I smogged my car it cost around $200 for a new cat. So, I figured I would run an old, junk cat when I'm not at the smog shop so I can protect and preserve my $200 investment of a new cat. But then, of course, this TRD header is not smog legal so why am I even bothering as I'll be replacing it all for smog checks anyway. ARRRRRRRRG so aggravating. From all the "illegal" things I've done my fuel mileage is up 18.5% (32 MPG vs 27). So I am polluting LESS with my illegal parts. And then look at my 1981 Hilux. I had to jump through ENDLESS hurdles to replace a 35 year old carbureted engine with an OBD-II EFI engine that makes 62% better fuel mileage (21 MPG vs. 13) AND pay them a boat load of money for my effort to CLEAN the air??? The C.A.R.B. program can honestly suck my balls. If they REALLY cared about POLLUTION then they wouldn't need a visual inspection if it burns clean. For these reasons I am done with this crap.
Sorry, where was I
Got a 2.5" stainless straight pipe welded to a 2.5" stainless 2-bolt flange and began seeing where the U-bend will be located...