Sidepipes nearly finished

[hogster]

Been a while sinc I blogged anything so I thought I'd give an update on the sidepipes which, excluding a bit of trimming and tig welding are jusy about done.

Without reservation I can say that the idea for the pipes was ripped off from Aussie Mike...........Cheers......


This is the workings.........merge collectors with a single flange welded to it, and two different flanges for the internals.

The top one - 3 inch perforated pipe wrapped in stainless steel wool and fibre matting - then covered by the outer sleeve at the top of picture. This is the fun and noisy one.

The bottom one - Catalytic converter, stepped down with a reducer into 2 inch perforated pipe, more steel wool and fibre matting. Covered by the same outer sleeve.



The turn out pipe will have a flange on it as well, so the whole thing will bolt together at both ends.

The outer sleeve bolts are spaced at 45 degrees, wich means if I use a 1/4 inch spacer, there are convenient bolt placements for the heat shield, and I can turn the dump pipe from 45 degrees down to straight out the side on lad days.

Cheers

[jcraigau]

Hogster, that's a great looking bit of kit. Now you've done the hard yards will there be any for fellow Cobraites? :wink: :wink:

[Zedn]

Looks good.

What diameter is the pipe where the collector merges into 1?

Also where did you buy the materials from?

Liam

[hogster]

Thanks jcraigau, they were a pain in the buttski for the guy that turned all the bits and pieces on the lathe for me. I apparently purchased a new element not previously known to mankind. It is able to consume carbide drills and machine tools at will..........

Zedn - 60mm at the narrowest point of the merge. I went with 1.75 inch primaries and will run 4 into 4. The people at Burns stainless told me that 2 inch was too big and I would lose power. I really like the look of them now. Once the are polished up they'll be mighty blingy........

Cheers

Cheers

[OZCOBRA]

Originally Posted by hogster

I apparently purchased a new element not previously known to mankind. It is able to consume carbide drills and machine tools at will........Cheers

.....So long as you don't have to wear the cost of them!!

....For the Garage a product I've found invaluable for drilling is SLICK50 (Teflon)found that if the drill is dipped into it seems to stop the drill from getting overly hot and seems to hold its edge long term as a result I haven't gone through many drills at all over the last 10yrs.

[Aussie Mike]

Great work Hogster, Those merge collectors look awesome are they an off the shelf collector or did you weld them up?

I really enjoy TIG welding stainless. It flows so nicely and you can produce some really nice welds.

For the ends where the large diameter pipe slides over the flange you might want to add a clamp setup. If it's not clamped up tight you will find that over time the pipe will fret as it flexes up and down. The pipe end will slowly enlarge letting exhaust gasses out and leave sooty marks on your nice pipes. I'll post a pic of how I clamp mine. It's not visible from the side of the car and dead easy to make. It will also let you machine the flange OD a little smaller so the pipe slips on and off easily. Once they carbon up a bit the can be difficult to get apart.

I've recently been machining more stainless and starting to get the hang of it. You need to run slower speeds and plenty of coolant. Tungsten carbide tipped tooling helps too.

I use a synthetic coolant these days. You buy it in a 5L container and then run it about 20:1 with water. It's way better than the old vegetable based coolants because it's not prone to growing algae and other bugs in it (If you've ever had to clean out a coolant you'll be happy about that). It also stays clear rather than going milky white like the old coolants. The advantage is you can have your workpiece bathed in coolant and still see what you're doing. It's in the tanks on the Lathe and mill but I also keep a spray bottle handy for when I'm drilling etc.

Some one told me once a little rhyme to help identify where your going wrong when turning on a lathe. Talking about the swarf coming off the work piece: "If it's blue or brown slow it down".

Keep up the good work and keep us posted with progress pics.

Cheers

[Zedn]

Mike,

The next project on my list is to make a stainless steel fuel tank. I am going to use 1.2mm sheet and i recently purchased a DC pulse tig. I found an old post of yours about this, what size sheet did you end up using and how did it go? pics?

I am going to spend some time practicing with the tig before starting as i have only done mig and arc welding in the past. What sort of tig tip would you recommend for this job?

(sorry for the thread jack)

Liam

[David Hodgson]

Hogster, looks great. One thing i found when trying to keep them quite was perf tube with more holes like your 3" worked far better than perf with larger but less holes.

[Aussie Mike]

Hi Liam,

I haven't got back to the fuel tank project yet. Once the new shed is up and I've moved in I'll be able to get back into it.

I was thinking about using 1.6mm stainless. It's a bit heavier but easier to weld. Plus the fuel tank is reasonably vulnerable under a low car like a cobra so I thought a bit of extra strength wouldn't go amiss.

Cheers

[hogster]

Hi Mike,

The collectors are off the shelf from Burns Stainless in the USA.

They turned out to be as cheap as anything I could buy in Australia, but with fairly good quality.

I am just going to leave the primaries as a slip fit into the collector, with spring tension. Should work OK.

I will by me a decent TIG welder when I have finished pumping money into the car, and can recover a bit. I have always wanted to learn to weld proper,,,,,,alloy, stainless and all.

Cheers

[hogster]

A bit closer to having the sidepipes finished.

Bling bling..................





More photos in my gallery of how they go together.

Territorian won the Aussie Sprintcar Championships.......Had it all, rain delays, dry track and dust, thrills and spills and driver punchups, didn't finish the main race till the a.m. this morning. It was greeat......

Cheers
Hogster

[Jerry Clayton]

You guys down there wanting to do stainless tube and tank welding should check out www.tigdepot.com and MrTig. Look at the Gentec 196 ar-60 dual flowmeter regulator for purging the inside of whatever your welding---
He also has lots of toys and articals

Jerry

[boxhead]

Originally Posted by hogster

A bit closer to having the sidepipes finished.

Bling bling..................





More photos in my gallery of how they go together.

Territorian won the Aussie Sprintcar Championships.......Had it all, rain delays, dry track and dust, thrills and spills and driver punchups, didn't finish the main race till the a.m. this morning. It was greeat......

Cheers
Hogster

Looks great Andrew, I still have your brake pipe tool, have not heard from Paul, tell him I plan on having Cobra at work on Thursday and Friday (although it was 1 degree on the way to work this morning)

And James McFadden is not just a Territorian, he is an Alice Springs local.

[Rob. Smith]

Originally Posted by Zedn

Mike,

The next project on my list is to make a stainless steel fuel tank. I am going to use 1.2mm sheet and i recently purchased a DC pulse tig. I found an old post of yours about this, what size sheet did you end up using and how did it go? pics?

I am going to spend some time practicing with the tig before starting as i have only done mig and arc welding in the past. What sort of tig tip would you recommend for this job?

(sorry for the thread jack)

Liam

Liam Go to welding tips and tricks .com they have all the answers.
Rob

[hogster]

Got the pipes hanging on the car properly now and am building extractors to meetr the 4 into 4. Slowly slowly, but I am happy with the look

[alffie]

Hi Hogster
The pipes are looking good but you will need to look at the angle of your exits as MVR has a requirement of not more than 15 deg horizontal and 45 deg vertical for side pipes. and they will make you do a noise test at the shed regardless of your engineers report so make sure your tacho dosent work so they cant make you go to 55% of max RPM for the noise test Would you beleive the LS7 was 79Db at idle! and 93Db at 3850 RPM
Howd you go at the drags? You dissapeared after I saw you with ED who was well very merry at the end of the night hahaha. Anyway Iam working weeekends for the next 3 weeks but would can catch up durin the week, maybe go round and have a beer with ED?

[hogster]

No worries with the turn out exit. They all bolt together at 45 degree increments, so I can turn then down 45 for registration purposes. As for the noise, interior cats, perforated pipe, steel wool and glass matting. If still too noisy, will go the same way you did with a screw type interior baffle as well. Should be OK as there is a fair bit of pipe length to shut it up.

Had a beer with Ed on Friday arvo. I am sure he would look forward to a chat and refreshing ale.

Cheers mate

[Merv and Sharon]

Given that for most of us these are fitted for visual effect only and not active, do many make them in aluminium for lightness?

[Gav]

Wouldn't they melt?

[Merv and Sharon]

Why Gav - they are not active? The major problem seems to be finding ally that 90mm and bendable.