jacked the car up tonight and looked at the exhaust. I can remove it easily.. especially since I know it has already been removed within the last half year or so, but there's no way I can remove the old exhaust safely or bolt the new exhaust in place without help. Everything is just too heavy. I can't wait to get it done though.
and I'm still struggling with where to place jack stands on this car. The points to use for the floor jack are fairly simple and sturdy, but jack stand locations are sketchy at best. Most recommendations for the rear are to place jack stands immediately in front of the rear wheels, at the "toe plates", where the rear trailing arms meet the subframe. But that's deep enough up inside the car that the car just isn't lifted that high up unless you have some rather high lift jack stands.
placing jack stands at the front is a little easier... I think, but I haven't tried it yet, other than using the lift points on the rocker panels, which are also rather sketchy.
Ugh... really need to find another e36 person who has done this and see what they do.