Got all the welds done on the exhaust piping, even added the bung for the 02 sensor. It's located about a foot or so downstream from the turbo outlet and I'm not worried about it working, as reading about those with the innovate lc-1 (now 2) it works quite well even temporarily placed in the tailpipe, so I don't think this is a thing to stress over.
My 2 1/2" wide fiberglass cloth strip - 25' roll - arrived. It's good to 1,000 degrees f. I will wrap the entire length of the pipe from the turbo to the first marman clamp, which is just past the starter.
Today I had planned to properly mount the wedge and 3-bolt manifold, but the 152t hardware is always at the ready "to surprise". How do I explain this….the mst-113 says to use the usual exhaust locking tab washers, except the pocket machined to accept the bolt head is circular and there are no "flats" that the flat bent over part would go against. Scratch that idea. The mst calls out for five 2" long bolts. When bolted up, these are short inside the little ears on the head, you know, the ones that break off now and then. I need all the clamping I can get so I bought 2 1/2" allen head bolts, cut them down to 2 1/8", plus drilled the heads with a 3/32" bit for safety wire. Easy-peasy, actually. I skimmed the copper rtv on both side of the first exhaust gasket and bolted 'er all up with sae flat washers behind the allen bolt heads. Then on went the safety wire. I bought one of those handy safety-wire pliers (those are so cooool) but even so, I need some work on my technique. Oh, and I used anti-seize as some of the threads do come through the little ears and are exposed. One day those May need to be removed.
Next step was adding the 3-bolt manifold, which is otherwise identical the the common 2-bolt job, except that it points up. Now, the mst calls for two exhaust manifold gaskets. I thought the one going between the wedge and the manifold would go on just like the other, but to my shock, it can only work by mounting upside down! The manifold is upside down and those little mounting buttons are now up where they must contact the cantilever arms cast into the wedge. And at that, the bent over flange part gets in the way of everything. In short, it's impossible unless you severely modify it by cutting off the flange and notching the areas between the ports and right below the holes for the bolts, as any material in these areas hits against the bolts that mount the wedge to the head in the first place!
At this place in history it is impossible to ask anyone from the assembly line how this little trick was done in a way other than what I'm puzzling out right now.

in the meantime, you'd want to figure this all out before you skimmed that rtv all over both sides, right? I managed to use xylol to remove it and after cutting away lots of the metal shim exhaust gasket, I'm probably going to need a transfusion when all the bleeding from my fingers eventually stops. Cutting tin is hazardous!
