Where is good for stainless steel intercooler pipes?

[Mr Whippy]

Well, after a long time I've finally got my intercooler on my car.

The problem now is finding some decent pipes.

I was going to use mild steel as it's strong and easy to work with, and cheap. However, mandrel bent 2" isn't cheap, nor is just normal 'kink' bent 2" on a tight radius (quite hard to bend mild on a tight radius it seems, hence the high price)
Aluminium seems popular on Ebay, but it's hard to weld and get a good solid strong join (a friend used it and his joints opened up, great if you will use solid bits and then use silicone joins everywhere, but not so good for making bigger sections it seems)




Stainless, easy to weld, strong, not hugely expensive, but it's REALLY hard to find places that do a wide selection of bits to choose from like the ally bits on Ebay.

Does anyone know of a good resource in the UK that does a wide range of 2" stainless parts? Ie, decent lengths (we can cut it down to length), 90deg bends, 45's etc etc...

Thanks

Dave

[Mr Whippy]

Hmmm, I tried contacting a few (email) but haven't had any responses yet, so I guess they are really busy or don't want business

I ended up just buying a load of ally 2" bends/straights, so much infact that I'm pretty sure I have every concievable piece I could possibly need and so don't actually need to weld it, or have unnecessary joints!

We got some ally wire and the right gas for the mig, but it's a tad more tricky to do than good old mild steel

Need to practice a bit!

Thanks

Dave

[Mr Whippy]

Haha, I think I'll need lots of practice to get good with ally

We have a decent sized compressor (probably 50 gallon capacity), so can pump air through the pipes at a fair old rate while working on it, that should help keep it cooler

Fingers crossed my current setup will all go in without any welds anyway, that will be the idea setup... no weak points!


I'll be sure to post pics when it's finished too!

Thanks once again.

Dave

[Mr Whippy]

Ah hehe, ok

Makes sense...

Will hopefully see this Saturday and post back if it's a disaster, for laughs

Dave

[Mr Whippy]

eliot said:

I've just plumbed my intercooler in using one of the ebay pipe kits. The pipes are nicley bent etc and shiny - the problem is when you come to weld them; you need to extensivley grind them right back because they have applied a clear powder coat (or similar) to them.
The couplers that came with the kit are just cheap PVC things, which are only really any good for mock-up and basic testing - mine kept blowing off.
Once i had it all figured out, I replaced the pipes with proper silicon pipes and genuine mikalor pipe clamps.

You can see how much i had to clean the pipe up compared to the otherL
http://www.mez.co.uk/dcam/DSCF3062.JPG
(And dont comment about the merge, its temporary until I can be bothered sit sit down one afternoon and make another one)

Yeah, our pipes look very shiny, I wasn't sure if it was polished alot and coated somehow, they look a little like stainless steel.

Either way they sand back ok... we got decent seperate silicone joins seperately, the ally pipes were just big (lots left on each side of the bends to reduce need for welding) and relatively cheap...

As said, hopefully I'll get away without any welding. Might not manage to do it this weekend though, my last shipment of expensive special sized silicone (from Peugeot size pipes onto the 2" system, at weird angles) is still on an aeroplane over Iraq I think

Ah well, gives me more time to do more testing in preparation for making the remap that will hopefully get me a nice round 250lbft and 160bhp

Dave

Edited by Mr Whippy on Friday 12th September 09:50

[Mr Whippy]

GreenV8S said:

rev-erend said:

GreenV8S said:

stevieturbo said:

And with Alu....it has to be clean clean clean clean clean.

I've never done it, but I've been shown aluminium brazing and it looked incredibly easy - and the join was stronger than the surrounding material.

I have some of this Mig brazing wire and have also been told it's idea for joining different metals.. not tried it yet though.

The approach I was shown involved a blow torch and brazing stick. It looked relatively foolproof, but then these things always do when somebody else is doing it ...

I've seen that, but not sure on it's penetration capability... I think alot of weld-surface prep is needed... ie, funneling the ends of pipes and filling the V section... I've seen ones brazed and they appeared pretty weak unless you funnel the edges to be joined.

Dave

[Mr Whippy]

I think a bit of practice makes perfect will pay off here. A good skill to have anyway I rekon, then I can make a nice custom intake manifold with an integrated charge cooler

Dave