Magnum Exhaust Manifolds in an A Body

I think I've posted this before in another thread, apologies to those who have to read it again:

When someone on here said they would work I decided to pickup a set of the 2 1/8" Magnums before I had really researched it myself because I'm dealing with a '76 four speed car. New enough to need smogging means retaining a cat equipped exhaust. When you add the additional deal breaker of the fast steering arms I got from Dick Ross to the fact I'm old enough now to make me not want to be crawling under the damn thing anymore than I have to, you can see why stock cast iron manifolding seems so appealing.

Trial fitting on the neighbors car (same year /6 Duster with a 318 on Schumacher mounts) revealed the propensity of steering gear and driver side Magnum exhaust manifold to occupy the same real estate. On the plus side the passenger side manifold misses the firewall with adequate clearance and looks to allow routing of the exhaust to miss oil filter, torsion bars, and fast ratio steering arms. The solution to the driver side problem resolved itself in the form of a Craigs List ad for a 72- 74 340/360 driver side A body manifold. Opening up the passenger side Magnum manifold 1/8" matches up the diameter of both sides. Not needing to accommodate headers/collector reducers gives more flexibility in converter and X pipe placement. The ability to run the factory tin hot air enclosure/ hot air pipe to the air cleaner on the driver side manifold will help satisfy the smog inspectors too.