MatHadder

hey, i need to get four pieces of custom bent aluminum tube. if anybody can get these for me, or knows somebody who can get them for me, please let me know. the specs are as follows:

1.5" dia, .065 wall thickness 6061 T6 tubing

2" straight section, followed by a 6" radius bend for 29.2degrees, followed by another 2" straight section, and then bent back the other way with radius 6" and 29.2 degrees, followed by another 2" straight section.

I will post a drawing as soon as i find somewhere to host the image. thanks for any help.

k24em2

Just FYI, you're not going to get that extra two tenths of a degree in your bend. Tolerances on bent piping is usually +/- one degree.

MatHadder

well, the angle is not really the important part. It is important that both ends are parallell and separated by 2.5", so that is the angle that accomplishes that. I am trying to get the drawing hosted, which will make it clearer.

MatHadder

This is what I would need bent. click for larger image.

KFMRC

If you only need one or a couple then use some 90 degree bends and weld them together to get waht you need. to bend one of those somebody is going to want about
$400 dollars maybe more yeh thats not a misprint

MatHadder

It is for a restricted engine that is going to be used in a competition where we cant afford to give power away because of ugly welds inside our intake runners. I know it could be expensive. I didnt ask for your opinions, i was wondering if you knew anybody who could do it for me.

.RTErnie

If you purged the aluminum...and had someone that could TIG worth a ****...and had porting tools you might think differently.

I know because i've done it and I do it.

you oregon state guys need to eliminate the box for a while.

if you're dead set on getting it bent... There is a bending company down columbia blvd near swan island. They have the capabilites of doing this for you...it just depends on if you can get them to do it. Usually they wont sneeze at anything under $5k. good luck.

MatHadder

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ~RTErnie~ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
you oregon state guys need to eliminate the box for a while.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Man, i have no idea what that means.

BTW, do you have any idea what the name of the company is?

Kookz

It means you're thinking inside the box.

MatHadder

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Kookz &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It means you're thinking inside the box.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I dont know about that. Welding is probably the most obvious option to making these, but we have several sets of runners sitting around which have been welded, and they all look like crap on the inside. As for porting, maybe you have a different idea on how to do it, but it looks to me like you would not be able to reach the inside of the weld once it was put together.

I have seen a 10% power loss from our engine just from runners with poor surface finish, so i would like to get these done right. If i cant find anybody who can bend them for us we might end up making them out of carbon, but this will be time consuming, expensive, and can also have a poor internal surface finish.

TGrant

When welded properly, there should be no bead on the inside of aluminum.

.RTErnie

dont make it out of aluminum... have you tried coatings? Protrude your weld into the port...and then port it back out. How about flanging it? stepped runners? there are plenty of ways to beat your problem.

Tubular Solutions Inc.
2690 N.W. Nicola St.
Portland, OR 97210
Phone: 503-224-9907

Another place I've talked to ... Northstar fabrications in Sutherland oregon.

THomas directory actually works very well for finding people for this.

grubere

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ~RTErnie~ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">dont make it out of aluminum... have you tried coatings? Protrude your weld into the port...and then port it back out. How about flanging it? stepped runners? there are plenty of ways to beat your problem.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Ive never known coating to allow a high thermal conductivity, only lower it. So I dont think thats a valid solution. But I agree with you when saying that it should be able to be fabbed. Most likely you wont want to use 6061 but another alloy. I know a year or so ago they had the "Great Biker Build Off" on discovery and some Aussie was using some aluminum alloy and backpurged it and was getting a weld on both side. I dont think ive ever seen that before with 6061 as when you give it more heat it just seems to bubble out. I'm far from a professional, so it could be done and I'm just not aware of it.

If you want to have stuff mandrel bent a good guy to look into is http://store.racing-solutions.org/. Ive never dealt with him and I dont know a damn thing about his company but it seems they have a **** ton of dies and probably can bend this up relatively easily. Id suggest changing your design so you arent using retarded angles though. Also Id suggest fabbing an example of what you want so they can use that as a template to make sure you get what you want.

.RTErnie

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by grubere &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Ive never known coating to allow a high thermal conductivity, only lower it. So I dont think thats a valid solution. But I agree with you when saying that it should be able to be fabbed. Most likely you wont want to use 6061 but another alloy. I know a year or so ago they had the "Great Biker Build Off" on discovery and some Aussie was using some aluminum alloy and backpurged it and was getting a weld on both side. I dont think ive ever seen that before with 6061 as when you give it more heat it just seems to bubble out. I'm far from a professional, so it could be done and I'm just not aware of it.

If you want to have stuff mandrel bent a good guy to look into is http://store.racing-solutions.org/. Ive never dealt with him and I dont know a damn thing about his company but it seems they have a **** ton of dies and probably can bend this up relatively easily. Id suggest changing your design so you arent using retarded angles though. Also Id suggest fabbing an example of what you want so they can use that as a template to make sure you get what you want.</TD></TR></TABLE>

did you know there are more than just thermal coatings available? And dont just think of automotive coatings...and then once you get beyond that mental hurdle...you should try to get coatings that aren't commercially available. All the good **** isn't going to be in Super street or Jegs.

grubere

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ~RTErnie~ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

did you know there are more than just thermal coatings available? And dont just think of automotive coatings...and then once you get beyond that mental hurdle...you should try to get coatings that aren't commercially available. All the good **** isn't going to be in Super street or Jegs.</TD></TR></TABLE>

So you are telling me there is a coating that is going to increase thermal conductivity? So if I coat a piece of mild steel it will shed heat faster than uncoated mild steel(just using mild steel as an example)? I've never heard of such a thing, which is why I'm asking and why I said "I've never known coating to allow a higher thermal conductivity". If you have more info on this, I would be very interested to read about it.

MatHadder

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by grubere &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

So you are telling me there is a coating that is going to increase thermal conductivity? So if I coat a piece of mild steel it will shed heat faster than uncoated mild steel(just using mild steel as an example)? I've never heard of such a thing, which is why I'm asking and why I said "I've never known coating to allow a higher thermal conductivity". If you have more info on this, I would be very interested to read about it.</TD></TR></TABLE>


Yes, that is in fact possible.

however, i dont see what coating have to do with keeping a good surface finish inside IM runners.

Ernie-- most of your solutions sound like ways to ghetto around the issue, as opposed to just finding a source of bent runners. we have a set in the shop that we used on last years car, so i know it can be done. i just need to find somewhere I can purchase them. stepped runners would still need to be welded. weight is an issue, so flanges are probably out of the question. i still dont understand where you are going with coatings, maybe you can clear that up. aluminum can have a surface finish almost as smooth as glass. my experience with composites is that they dont have nearly as good a finish.

.RTErnie

last time I checked aluminum was porous.

If you have a set from last year...go find out who did them for you and have them made. Did you call the places I listed? Have you tried calling bending places and ask them who can bend aluminum to the specs you want? Who said your intake manifold has to be carbon fiber? Why not fiber glass or plastic? And why is there no taper to the runners? Have you done any flow bench testing? You guys take any fluid dynamics at OSU? You may want to reconsider your "straight piping." Also...what are these bends for? are they to clear something else? If you're sacrificing performance to clear an existing chassis connection...I suggest you reconsider what your priorities are.

http://www.google.com

Fabrication is only as ghetto as YOU make it. Tony1's fabrication is by no means ghetto. Also did you think about making aluminum joints that SLIP inside one another with a PERFECT smooth fit? You have mills and lathes at OSU... and you can machine pieces with accuracy AT LEAST to the thousandths... Im sure a thousandths of a gap will not murder your air flow. I think your solution is using thicker runners and having them machined...or using the same thickness runners just using a longer slip joint. How to seal this joint? how about a silicon coupler...or hell why not weld it? Dont weld it at first...with these slip on runners you can change your runner length and test to see how they directly affect engine response. And since this thing is 2wd...i bet you could get it on a dyno @ Torque Freaks or Unnatural etc etc etc...and actually dyno test what you've created. If you do all your own tuning on the dyno I believe its 85 dollars an hour if you lease it. If you go to unnatural...you'll get a better deal and treated better IMO.
___
|__| &lt;-- get outside of this.

MatHadder

the ones we used last year were actually made in '99. there is nobody left from that team.

I am talking to racing-solutions, and i think they are going to bend them.

the plenum is fiberglass, at least now, although it will probably be remade in carbon for competition, since it needs to be very strong, and like i said before, strength is an issue.

my guess is that flow bench testing would show us exactly how much airflow it takes to choke a 20mm restrictor.

the runners are bent to clear several bars on the chassis, and also because we are using cloverleaf runner positioning within the plenum. as far as our priorities, we have considered them, and trust me, they are in the right place.

do you seriously want us to machine the runners? talk about a huge waste of time and effort. we already dont have enough people who can machine for us to get all the stuff made that we want to, so adding another project is not happening. not to mention the fact that it is insane, since you can purchase tubing that will work just as well.

as for a dyno, we have a superflow engine dyno. trust me, the runner lengths, plenum volume, and the exhaust primary and secondary lengths will all be tested. hell, we even had some custom cams cut this year to better suit the restricted nature of our motor.

Frankly, ernie, i think you need to back off a little bit. I think you are assuming that we dont know anything about what we are doing, and that we havent considered any alternatives. I think this is the 11th year of the formula SAE program at Oregon State. that means we have built 11 cars, from scratch. Last year, had we not broken a rod end, we would have finished in the top 10 out of 110 schools who came to competition.

I posted this thread to see if anyone knew of any places for me to get this tubing bent, not for ideas on how to jank my way around bending tube. Thank you for giving me the name of that company, if i cant work something out with racing solutions i will contact them.

djphonics

~RTErnie~, you sound like you really need to remove the gigantic stick from your *** and stop being so god damned full of yourself! Engineering is about finding the best solution to the problem, and if you think you've got the best solution, why don't you go start yourselft up a Formula SAE team and build a winning car? While you're at it, try convincing the design judges why you've chosen to CNC machine your complicated intake runners for a car that is supposed to be sold in larger quanities to cost-concious weekend autocrossers.

Also, aluminum is porus? WTF are you talking about. Maybe if it is sand cast and not finished. If aluminum is extruded or machined, it can be polished to an EXTREMELY high level of surface smoothness which could be ideal for high speed flow.

I could go on here for days because I'm so pissed about the responses I've seen here, but I'm going to stop because the point is MatHadder asked if anyone knew of a place that could mandrel bend some aluminum tubing and you people jump on his nuts and start telling him how to design ****! Think about this too: Why would anyone trust some goon on an internet forum on how to design parts? Maybe you need to start learning to think outside the box, and that box is your ridiculously overblown ego. Peace.

.RTErnie

I'll tell you what. I'll find you a place that will bend your aluminum for you. I get out of class tomorrow @ 3:00pm. I will leave you a name and a number you can call to get your aluminum pipe bent. And they will know exactly what you're expecting and what you're looking for. I'll tell them a gentleman from OSU's engineering dept will be contacting them soon to produce 4 of these runners for their Formula SAE program. i will talk to you all in the morning.

-Eric Urness



Modified by ~RTErnie~ at 11:08 AM 2/10/2006

KTeller8

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MatHadder &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It is for a restricted engine that is going to be used in a competition where we cant afford to give power away because of ugly welds inside our intake runners. I know it could be expensive. I didnt ask for your opinions, i was wondering if you knew anybody who could do it for me.</TD></TR></TABLE>

if you sent me a copy or sample, i could make them

.RTErnie

there it is.

.RTErnie

United Pipe Bending & Fabrication Inc.
10534 NE Marx
Portland OR 97220
503.252.5649

^ they can do it, but they're two weeks out. And the lady in the front office cant hear for ****.

Albina pipe bending co.
12080 SW Myslony St.
Tualatin, OR 97062

Phone: (503) 692-6010
ask for Bill Smith

^they can do it, but they say you would need a wiper to get the wrinkles out of the aluminum...(tooling) that the don't have.

I talked to TSI and they said that someone from the OSU program already called...and they can't do a bend like that so close together. Altho they said Albina would be the way to go.

What you need is a compound die...which is rare and hard to find. Its usually made for just ONE specific bend.

so there ya go. Albine said they can do it....and they were recommended by two other bending facilities I called. I did all that in about 25 minutes.

MatHadder

albina told us that they couldnt bend them with less than a 10" radius when we contacted them several weeks ago.

.RTErnie

not what they told me. I said 6" radius...and he said no problem.