Myself and Jonnyangel did this very thing on Wednesday night. Our tubes are 2" OD mandrell bent that section into about 1 and 1/4". We too chopped the bottoms off to get them in there. Just a word of wisdom about cutting into your bulkhead piece, measure twice... make that 50 times, cut once. We had everything lined up and made a jig to make sure we cut the holes in the right spot cuz you can never be too careful. Looks great but now his interior is tore apart. They add so much to the car. Really makes it look mean when you're behind it. I would say it's a very worthy upgrade to the interior of our already sporty cars.