The last two nights have been productive. On the first night, I concentrated on cutting off the remaining piece of the wastegate pipe junction and patching up the hole. My previous TIG welding experience was limited to about 10 minutes in a TAFE course a decade ago, but I supplemented this with some YouTube tutorials.

At the start, I spent as much time grinding the Tungsten rod as actual welding after repeatedly fouling the tip. Joining different thickness metals was a difficult first task. I eventually managed to get a piece of plate covering the hole and the bung for the wide band O2 sensor. I was planning to mount it off the back of the turbo but luckily I read the instructions and saw it would melt if it were closer than 2 feet from the turbine. The spot I used is close to this, with the bung mounted on the appropriate angle to avoid heat soak and condensation.

The next day, I moved onto adapting the superfluous piping from the old wastegate pipe to be the new wastegate junction. I looked at some more YouTube videos to improve my technique which definitely paid off. A courier delivered the exhaust flanges as I was working on the pipe too, so everything was aligning.

The left over sections were ideal for modifying the pipe how I intended. I marked the material with racing crayon and used cutting discs, holesaws and grinders to shape the pieces. My welding was getting better and better too:

Not perfect but better than the existing welds on the dump pipe. The pipe currently needs one weld to complete it, which I will complete Thursday at the latest.

The picture above illustrates how the external wastegate pipe can now be completely removed to free up engine bay space when working on the car.