tig weld it mate, you could make the manifold longer which shouldn't matter to much, so if you do any modifications do it on the manifold, you can buy flex exhaust pipe i duno if you could get some that small but its worth a go, or even if you used some of that pipe they use between the manifold and the exhaust i was thinking about the same idea for my x-cell but its not going to happen to much mucking around, best of luck.

milne