Hello! I am the proud owner of a Catalina 30 that has an atomic 4 engine. Somehow water got into the cylinders and oil and I am tearing it apart to get the engine to turn, check the damage, etc etc. When I tried to take the exhaust section off it literally shattered into pieces as the previous owners made one out of something or other that I guess wasn't meant for exhaust...? The bible(moyer manual) says to used galvanized steel or "black steel." Is this just the stuff from home depot? Is there a better place to buy this stuff? It looks like they reused the hot water entry portion as that held up pretty well, but the rest of the exhaust had turned black and will chick away with some metal persuasion.
There is very little space in the Cat 4 to make a big fancy hot exhaust system. In the bible it says to have the water enter 4" above the water lift and have a total of 12" from the top of the exhaust down to the water lift. It looks like the current/past configuration was about 2" and 4" respectively. This would require going up about 12" first as the exit from the exhaust manifold is about level with the entrance to the water lift exhaust. The factory ones sold by Catalina don't come close to meeting these specs. I figure that it is possible to build one and just take out the shelves from the kitchen or something. Should I just go with the like 4" factory setting or rearrange everything/go through the immense hassle of building a 12" one?