[blee]

Jake -

Discarded the wadding - it turns into dust when handled.
The strips are for structural support - ala M&K.
Sorry, no pictures of the innerts before closing her up. I was on a mission by then to finish and forgot to take pictures. It did look just like my drawing, maybe just not as pretty.
The trickiest part was fabbing & welding in the two half-moon pieces to isolate the center chamber. You want to make sure you have a pretty good seal in order for the whole back-pressure path-thing to work, plus there's lots of heat where the exhaust manifold attaches so you want to be sure they will hold.

Have driven the car about 3K miles this summer with this muffler - I wouldn't trade it for anything else! The sound is just right and the rev-response is intoxicating.

Enjoy the journey!