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Making a tube header for the turbo side

Burning oil said:
Nice welds. I have the same machine, but don't have the touch like you.
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Thanks Leroy. I used to work as a welder making expensive outdoor furniture. I'm not as good as I used to be but most of the time I can do well enough for myself.
 
NVW said:
Good idea on the extra hole, I also did that on the stock manifold. It still has a plug in it.:(
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I had an extra hole in my stock manifold too. Don't know if I'll ever use it but it's easy to put in now so might as well.
 
Painted. I used the DEI high temp silicone coating again. I can't say enough good things about this stuff. I put it on my downpipe adapter last winter and it's still hanging on strong. image.jpgimage.jpg image.jpgimage.jpg
 
Very cool. Speaking of temps, you might see an increase, underhood.

One thing to remember on equal length and all that; throw it out the window on applications like this. Also since the exhaust is supplying Drive Pressure, equal length and super big tubes need not apply. Your best bet is to keep from losing the heat needed to drive that turbine. Wrap that bad boy up!

Very crafty piece, LIKE!.
 
Looks great. Would it be beneficial to put a brace from the back stand off to the crossover flange or collector/splitter tube? Or would thermal expansion movement pull it away or other? Anything in the way there like heater hoses etc?
 
3500GMC said:
Very cool. Speaking of temps, you might see an increase, underhood.

One thing to remember on equal length and all that; throw it out the window on applications like this. Also since the exhaust is supplying Drive Pressure, equal length and super big tubes need not apply. Your best bet is to keep from losing the heat needed to drive that turbine. Wrap that bad boy up!

Very crafty piece, LIKE!.
Click to expand...
Thanks! I would love to have it coated in White Lightning to keep heat in and keep other things cooler but I don't have the budget for that right now. I also don't want to wrap it because I'm afraid of rust since we salt here in the winter. I did buy heat wrap for all the hoses and wires nearby to protect them and I also think I'm going to make heat shields for the fuel lines and battery and stuff.

I do agree with you regarding the equal length stuff. Only if I was making a center mount turbo system would the equal length tubes matter, but it's already so imbalanced with the long crossover that I was just really trying to reduce exhaust stream conflicts. Initially I wanted to keep #2 and #8 away from each other since they're closest to each other in the firing order, but it didn't work out packaging-wise. Although it may have worked out in the end since I made the #8 tube so much longer. I don't know and really don't care that much since the whole system is a compromise. This should help me get heat out of #8 and that in itself would be enough, but I have to believe I'll gain more than that.

Thinking about this more, if I could do the White Lightning next year, perhaps I'd be ok wrapping it in the meantime? How much damage could be done before then? Hmmmm. Anybody have experience with wraps in salty areas? Also since I've already put a base of the DEI down that should get me some good protection. Uh oh, more stuff to ponder.
 
schiker said:
Looks great. Would it be beneficial to put a brace from the back stand off to the crossover flange or collector/splitter tube? Or would thermal expansion movement pull it away or other? Anything in the way there like heater hoses etc?
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Hmmmm I hadn't thought about that. It's pretty stout as a structure with all that tube, but a brace of some kind might not be bad. Maybe from the flange to the intake or something.
 
schiker said:
Looks great. Would it be beneficial to put a brace from the back stand off to the crossover flange or collector/splitter tube? Or would thermal expansion movement pull it away or other? Anything in the way there like heater hoses etc?
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I was thinking about this some more....you are more concerned about the pipes that are hanging off the back for the crossover here right? I think you might have a point and I may add a brace to them. I'm going to look into that. Thanks for mentioning it.
 
It's not always easy to predict where stresses wind up turning into cracks when fabbing turbo headers. After they've happened, it seems easier to sort out/theorize why it cracked where it did,...but challenging when building something new. It's not uncommon to see manufactured turbo headers get better over time as they analyze failures & improve how they build it.

It's cool to see your process & how it works out. I've wanted a TIG machine for several years now & this winter might be the time to get a bunch of practice in.
 
I decided to move forward on 2 of these ideas.

This morning I ordered the DEI exhaust wrap for both the header and the crossover. I would have liked to use their Titanium wrap but it isn't compatible with the silicone spray for whatever reason. I like the idea of wrapping it and then sealing it with the silicone spray....that should help protect it from the elements somewhat I hope. I'm not super worried about the header since it's higher but I also don't want to lose all that labor by having it rust out. The crossover would be much more susceptible to rust damage, but that is also easily replacable. Also I can see a huge benefit from the heat wrap by keeping the heat in from the driver's side exhaust. I would think that crossover would be a pretty good radiator in its current state.

I also added a brace to the header for the tubes from the crossover. That ends up being a huge lever arm so I think adding the brace is a great idea. I made the support out of 1/2" solid rod. Thank you for suggesting the idea schiker.

image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg
 
SmithvilleD said:
It's not always easy to predict where stresses wind up turning into cracks when fabbing turbo headers. After they've happened, it seems easier to sort out/theorize why it cracked where it did,...but challenging when building something new. It's not uncommon to see manufactured turbo headers get better over time as they analyze failures & improve how they build it.

It's cool to see your process & how it works out. I've wanted a TIG machine for several years now & this winter might be the time to get a bunch of practice in.
Click to expand...
The more I'm doing this stuff, the more I want a TIG and a plasma cutter. A vertical bandsaw would be nice too.
 
Last year, I bought what I think is one of the better quality import plasma cutters. I don't use it for a living & don't think I could justify the cost of a nice Hypertherm, etc., but still wanted capability to cut up to 1" material. My current fab project is grafting a DMax IC/rad stack into a 3500HD core support, so it will all fit together with a 3" body lift, and have as good as, if not better cooling than factory fan/fan shroud/rad alignment/tolerances. That's a subject I'll writeup when done, but thought I'd mention I quite happy with the Everlast Powerplasma 60 I bought. It's been a good machine. The TIG machine I'm leaning towards buying is their PowerTIG 250EX.

If you haven't already checked it out, I suspect you'd enjoy a youtube channel called www.weldingtipsandtricks.com. The guy is a talented, knowledgeable fabricator/welder. Lots of truly practical knowledge. He has a setup to video welding where you can easily see the puddle, while he narrates what he's doing/trying to do.
 
Also, check out SWAG's portaband stand concept. Simple way of adding versatility, usability to a portaband. Makes a slick way to cut IC/Exhaust tubing. Again with the cheap concept (as I'm not a professional fabricator) I have a Harbor Freight portable band saw that I'll weld up a simple stand for.

You might also enjoy a site called The Garage Journal. Lots of good ideas, as well as some opportunities to learn from seeing less than good ideas.
 
I've seen datalogs from a turbo drag car that's instrumented to the point the system could show/document how adding exhaust wrap to headers & turbine section impacted things. The notable gain was in spool up. And it wasn't huge, but was consistently there. Once things are spooled up, there is rather an excess of thermal energy so may not be big benefit beyond helping other underhood components live longer. But during spoolup, heat energy is one of the rate limiting factors. His car showed consistently quicker spoolup & recovery btwn shifts.
 
Wow thanks for all the info Smithville! I too have a Harbor Freight porta band. I first used it when making my downpipe adapter for my HX40 and I was amazed at how much better than a sawzall it was. A very indispensable tool in my arsenal now. As you can imagine I used it a lot on this header project. I'll have to look into a way to make a stand for it, that would make it super handy indeed.

One thing that swayed me further towards wrapping everything was how much faster the turbo spooled after just adding a turbo blanket. If just that little bit of insulation could make a noticable difference, then wrapping the crossover and header would have to make a great improvement....or at least I hope.
 
I have to say I also like the tubing for the mounting bolts so that they are all easy access. Good idea.

I've built a few headers over the years, I gave up on trying to figure out where it will crack or warp. I just build it, then modify as needed. The brace is a good idea there, the vibration would have beat it up without it.
 
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