Was looking to build a IM that needs some runners to have slight bends in them, i need to use the oval material, has anyone sourced this before or bent it themselves with decent results.

This is the material I need to use for a base:
http://www.rossmachineracing.com/ovaltube.html

 

Which way do you need to bend it? Like with the oval horizontal or vertical? How many degrees bend? How long of a runner?

 

Bent long ways , dont have an exact bend yet just want to know if it's possible, I know you can bend anything but it usually involves custom tooling and this is a onesy part for testing.

 

It is probably pretty hard to bend that without buckling or cracking, it would most likely need to be filled with sand or some other filler and capped while heated and pulled around a mandrel made for oval tubing. To return strength to it, it should probably be propperly heat treated after the work has been done to it.

 

You need to heat treat it

It doesn't bend easily. Here's a hint - use aluminum round tube, anneal it or buy annealed tubing. Bend. Then cut your tube down the middle. Flatten on belt sander if needed. Weld in the flat parts.

That's how the builder did my intake manifold.

 

i wonder if you can build some kind of brake press using curved piping and support the inside of the tube with something like sand to keep it from distorting to much?

 

I think you will end up with folds in the bend which will result in cracks.

 

Yeah I know the method of cutting tubing and adding straight but was really looking to not have weld in the runners. Guess I'll have to go that route since it looks like around. 6k to tool up

 

I didn't think it would be so complicated to bend..There has to be a shop that can do it for you easier than fabbing it up with split tube right?

hmm what about pie cuts to make the necessary bend?

 

Only way to bend that is gonna be 10k in oval tooling specific to that extrusion profile mounted on a decent mandrel bender. Been down this path numerous times.

 

If I am assuming correctly you mean $10,000 in tools? IF so why the hell is it so expensive?!

 

Probably because oval is rare.

Question seems answered, just wanted to thank Anti-lag for the link. I have been looking everywhere for IM velocity stacks.

 

$10k in tooling for one size, one wall thickness for a complex profile like that is not expensive for mandrel bender tooling. Small tube dies range around 4-8k for the complete set. On the other end of the spectrum I have tool sets that were over 30k for one size one radius (rectangle tube). It's an industry wide conspiracy IMHO, but there is little to be done outside of building your own dies and then still pay out of the nose for mandrels and wipers.

 

The rmr stuff is 6061 that **** will break before it bends, I know I've tried it (round tube that its)


Mike

 

6061 will bend fine. It just needs to be annealed to a T0.

 

Tooling is expensive, I know, we have to tool uP all the time at one of the fab shops, and our tooling ain't nothing compared to bending tooling. It's going to end up being easier to replicate and produce if I just cad a design. If I was anticipating high levels of sales then the tooling wouldn't be that bad, casting is also an option since that would be about 2k cheaper.

 

clearly it was not annealed.



mike

 

How long of a runner and how much of a bend? Is billet an option or is it too extreme of a bend?