New manifold and downpipe build for my gay track/autox/dd car. I decided to go with stainless in the beginning because the sch10 elbows were no more expensive than sched40 mild steel. Since I only have a mig welder I ended up having to outsource the final welding to a friend with a tig. Next time i'm building a mild steel mani with a slightly different design so I can weld it all myself.

Here is the design. Very basic.


A couple shots of the build.



And the mani all welded.


Now here are my downpipe build pictures where I actually did all the welding. This is where i'm looking for a critique on my welds.

Welding on the thick vband flange was easy to get a really nice looking weld.



And same with the flex joint.


Overall shots of the downpipe.



Welding the 16ga steel to itself was difficult compared to the thick stuff. I felt like I was flying with the gun around the pipe to keep from blowing through. I have a miller 130xp on 3 for voltage and 7 for wire feed. Is this normal? I dont have any pics of the bad welds to save my dignity =P

Here is everything as it sits. Still a couple bugs to work out. Mostly a large exhaust leak at the upper v band that I haven't been able to get sealed correctly.





Was a fun project. Cant wait to do it all again. With what i've learned this time around it should go quicker and with fewer issues next time.

 

not bad. definately not easy migging 16ga tubing

 

So i'm curious whats with the slice of pipe on the right side but not the left? Did you have to shift the turbo the left to get the DP to clear? Looks good though. It's pretty tough to mig SS and def difficult to get a good rip on 16g aluminized.

 

The leak is probably from the vband warping, clamp them down when you weld to keep that from happening.

 

Put a straight edge on the v-band flange to check for warp. A belt sander will take care of it or if desperate, flat file.

Did you try turning down voltage? Or a thinner wire?

 

I guess I could have put an even slice on both sides to make sure the 1 and 4 runners were equal length, but I really could use even more downpipe clearance than I have with the current configuration so thats why I decided to put just one on the right.

I resealed the upper v band and its holding so far. Its warped but I moved it around against the other flange and found an orientation where it looks like it warped together with the flange off the turbine when I welded them (clamped together).

In the future i'm going to be welding up the IWG and somehow welding a v band directly to the turbine outlet and modifying the mani (or building a new one) for EWG.

I'm glad I have my car back. I'm sick of driving our shitty Integra!