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Finally finished fitting the 4-1 manifold after 3 evenings. It gave me a chance to investigate the rattling from the exhaust silencer and it does indeed seem like the cat is breaking up. Seems like a good excuse for a carbon silencer soon! Save the current silencer for MOT time I think. Anyway, onto fitting the new manifold. With the exhaust system stripped off and weighed because I'm a bit anal (new manifold saves 620g you know), it was time to attack the bodywork once again. I really hate that job. I started off making the hole square, then slowly expanding it towards the front of the car, checking if I could feed the manifold through each time. For those interested, and please don't use these as your starting dimensions, I ended up with a hole around 165mm wide, 120mm tall and 235mm from the front of the tub. Looks like there is still some filing required on that hole! It fits quite well, and I did a better job of the silencer this time making sure it wasn't pulling down on the support bobbin. The only thing I'm questioning with myself is if I should grind these welds down a bit. I think I'll leave it. I'm not chasing every last bhp and it's brand new so doesn't really deserve meddling with! First impressions are good. I've only had it idling for 10 seconds or so but it already sounds deeper, less raspy. When summer decides to arrive I'll take it for a decent drive.