I recently picked up an Inconel header off of a CART motor for dirt cheap. I figured I might as well try to adapt it to a project car I am working on. I need to change the spacing on the ports slightly and weld on the appropriate head and turbo flange. Other then that, it places the turbo very near where I originally planned on placing the turbo and will clear the body and motor.

In the past, I have used mild steel head flanges because of the lower expansion when heated. With the Inconel, do I need to use a 304 or even a 321 flange? I really don't care to use a 304 or 321 flange just because it's stainless, as I have not had any corrosion issues using mild steel thus far.

Secondly, will back filling and shielding with argon be sufficient or are there other gases that will work better?

Third, there seems to be a coating on the outside of the metal. It is a greenish color; unless this is the natural color that inconel goes after several heat cycles? I am assuming I need to remove this coating with media blasting before welding, but I'm interested in knowing what kind of coating it is?

Fourth, the collector is a single slip collector with a strap that wraps around the parameter of the collector. Will this be sufficient to keeping a good seal on a turbocharged motor in a SFWD car that will see minimal street use?

I'll get some pictures of these headers up in a couple days. The header is pretty crazy and hopefully works out alright in a mere mortal engine instead of the 13,000 RPM race engine it was designed for. It features 2" primaries stepped to 2.25" about 8" from the collector. The runners are not equal length, but they are pretty close and roughly 16" in length.

 

Try to contact Engloid. He is the best welder I have seen and can definitely guide you in the right direction. Good luck!

 

I do believe that burnsstainless does inconel as well. They might be of some help.

 

You can use a Mild Steel Flange and you will want to use inco 625 filler rod to weld it which we have if need be.

100% argon purge is fine

Are you sure it's a coating?> If so you will want to remove it but inconel seems to turn a puprleish gold color, depending on how muhc heat is being applied


You might want to use double slips


The lengths are correct for the CART engine it was designed for however those tubes sizes were designed as well for that engine and they will more then likely be far too big for your engine.

 

The car's going to get Nitrous too, so it shouldn't be too bad on the tubing diameter. If it doesn't work out, I'm only out $300.

It's like a military green color, so it sounds like it's a coating of some sorts.

 

just a guess, but the green color could be a thermal coating. i have seen that stuff in some strange colors...
kyle

 

2" to 2.25" is really big for a small displacement turbo motor. Have fun welding that **** too!! Casey sent me some scraps to play with a couple weeks ago. I read everything i could find about welding Inconel when working on Rado's car, cause we were contemplating using it. We decided against it because of the price. However, everything i read about it talked about how it welds "dirty" and you can't really see the weld puddle, like it's under a coating or something. Well, sure enough, that's exactly how it is! lol I didn't have any filler, so i was just fusing some tubes togther, .020-.030 wall i think. Somewhere in there. It's kind of frustrating to weld, cause it doesn't really do what you want it to. I'm sure with time and practice it gets easier, just like anything else. It's definitely different from anything i've ever welded though, stainless, mild, Titanium, aluminum, etc...

 

625 wire will work, as Casey mentioned. If my memory serves me well, it is ErNiCrMo-4. Our welding engineer at a company I worked with a while back said it was actually Hastelloy. It welds best pretty hot...not so hot that it blows holes in the metal, but if you're hot enough, the **** that floats on top of the puddle will be pushed to the edges of the weld.

The pic below was actually done on larger pipe, walking the cup. It was an alloy called 254SMO, welded with 625 wire.

Root pass:

Second and final pass:

Notice above how the edges of the weld look funny...this is the **** that often floats on the puddle.

This is a larger weld, done in a turntable, pulsed. I was experimenting a little bit here, and didn't really care much for this look:


Not in turntable, but done walking the cup:


You may also have good luck with RN61, which doesn't have as much problems with **** floating on top of the puddle. Below is a pic of a weld done with it, on

 

You can't really put too much heat into .020 wall stuff before you burn through. I tried from very low heat to burning through heat and it still welded shitty.

 

Here are some pictures of the header I'm working with. I will likely use Nitrous, so the runner size might not be too bad. Also, the motor was a 2.65L V8. Volume wise, I'll be flowing more air per engine cycle then the motor it was originally on. The runners are roughly 16" in length, so they aren't too much shorter then the normal manifolds available.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 99_GS-T &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> Volume wise, I'll be flowing more air per engine cycle then the motor it was originally on.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, but when a Champ Car engine spins to 16,000 rpm, the bulk flow is what's important.

Where did you get the header? Must have been from a team, as they are normally responsible for supplying the headers. Looks like the flanges were cut off that bolted to the heads.

I take it you'll be supporting the manifold as well?

 

I'll be supporting the turbo with a pivoting brace.

I got the manifold from some student that I think was on a FSAE team. No idea how he got them, but he needed the money and I thought $1500 in materials for $250 was a decent deal.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tony1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You can't really put too much heat into .020 wall stuff before you burn through. I tried from very low heat to burning through heat and it still welded shitty.</TD></TR></TABLE>
The heat (number of degrees) required to melt the metal doesn't change with the thickness of it....amperage does. You need to run it hot to make the **** on the puddle separate, or just weld it cold and deal with the **** that floats. It can be welded successfully either way, but based on what I have seen it welds better when hot.

 

I'd like to see what you can do with this stuff. I'll send you the same scraps i was working with. Fuse them together and post pics. You interested? This is not a challenge, i'd just like to see the difference from mine. I welded mine the first time w/o purging, cause i was just screwing around. I'll weld another one and post pics of it as well. PM me your address if you want to give it a shot.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tony1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'd like to see what you can do with this stuff. I'll send you the same scraps i was working with. Fuse them together and post pics. You interested? This is not a challenge, i'd just like to see the difference from mine. I welded mine the first time w/o purging, cause i was just screwing around. I'll weld another one and post pics of it as well. PM me your address if you want to give it a shot.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Sure, I'll give it a shot. I don't have any filler here at home though, and the place I'm working at doesn't have that kind. Can you send a couple pieces?

Do I have to post up the pics if the welds are shameful?

 

I don't have any either, I was fusing the 2 together. Casey is going to send me some more scraps with some .020 filler next time.

Of course you have to post them if they're bad, that's the whole point of this! lol I'll post mine too, nothing i'm too proud of.

 

can i give it a shot but iam not as good as you guys are

 

NO, you can't play

 

 

come on now tony evryone can play.

Man you guys are sucking up my inco supply i was saving those for when i got good at welding

 

thanks casey ha tony

 

I don't wanna play anymore...

 

I wanna play

 

Damn all you inco ****** stealing my scraps !!!!!!!!!!

 

Well isn't that funny I'm making a inconel header for Frank at Pocket Rockets.And I'm pretty sure that your motor doesn't move half the air that a champ car does.
Do you think that Itchiepussie,I mean mitsubishi will stay together at 17,000rpm.Just raise the rev-limiter up to 18,000rpm.That should do it. You know they run about 50lbs boost.


Modified by RMF at 1:00 AM 9/27/2005