im debating replacing my old mild steel charge pipes with some aluminum ones and was pricing out mandrel bends. After pricing out individual bends and comparing them with those ebay "intercooler piping kits" the ebay kits are wayyyy cheaper. is this because the bends are of different quality or thickness of aluminum or something? do the ebay aluminum bends weld well or are they just a waste of time?

 

purchase them from t1 race, thats where i got mine

 

I got one of the big 3" bend packs on ebay, and the quality is deffinatley not as good as like atp or t1, but it works, and welds up decent, its just really thin, but it deffinatley gets the job done if you are fabbing it up, because the connectors they give you with it are absolute ****, but I never planned on using those anyway.

 

I just welded some aluminum charge pipes from ebay today. They are some junk let me tell you. I wire wheeled the f*ck out of them and used ALOT of cleaning action. They weren't the best aluminum welds I've ever done I can tell you that.

 

I wouldn't wire wheel aluminum.

 

why are you people wire wheeling aluminum tubing?!

iv welded the ebay stuff before and <U>IF</U> you prep it right... it welds fine

 

how do you weld over the anodizing wihout taking it off I can't seem to do it without wirewheeling the ones I tried were anodized , do you use more cleaning action?

 

EASYOFF oven cleaner removes anodizing.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ROTARY &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">EASYOFF oven cleaner removes anodizing. </TD></TR></TABLE>

wow I'm going to have to try this thanks

 

if its polished aluminum why would it be anodized?

and yea easy off will strip anodizing like a **** lol just bubbles right up and rinses off

 

clear anodize is used to protect the shine on polished aluminum, you can see this on HKS blow-off valves.

 

i've welded the ebay stuff with no prep. no problems. this was a few years ago though, maybe it is different now.

 

i ahve welded 2 sets or charge pipe form ebay. both were filthy, i made 2 exhaust form teh aluminum form that global technologies place and it welded awesome

 

^^^big difference between the two. I did the same thing and the better aluminum welds so much nicer.

I have a bunch of 2.5" and 3" bends left over from a project, if any of you guys are interested.

 

For me there seems to be two kinds of alluminum intercooler pipe sets from ebay. I've had customers bring me some pipes that were actually chrome plated instead of polished, and these were a bitch to prep and weld. And other customers brought these bends that were much thicker, not plated and welded decent. These ones also came bead rolled on the ends, maybe this will help to tell the difference because the plated ones weren't.