My miserable 1985 Buick Somerset with a 2.5L 4 (completely unbalanced mind you)
came from the factory with a welded together stainless steel manifold. After
175K miles, it is doing just fine.
The manifold is connected to the rest of the exhaust system through a flexible
coupling consisting of a flange on the cat pipe and another on the manifold with
a "doughnut" between them, all held together by two spring loaded bolts.
Perhaps the flexible coupling is what keeps the stiffer stainless from breaking
its welds.
Most of the vehicles in the Import Car Tuning magazines at the grocery store use
a fancy flexible coupling between their SS headers and the rest of the exhaust
system. Probably for that very reason!
--- JST
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